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About The Author

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.

661 Responses to Do you have some interesting wildlife news? July 31, 2017 edition

The Marion Superior Court #2 ruled that the State of Indiana was negligent for failing to warn park patrons that their employee was maintaining hidden, deadly animal traps throughout state park property.

“There’s no feeling in the world like shooting an endangered elephant.” ~Stan Kroenke, majority shareholder of Arsenal, a pro soccer club in the UK.

“Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke launches ‘sickening’ bloodsports channel in the UK that shows lion and elephant hunts: Subscription channel My Outdoor TV was launched in the UK over the weekend that will show numerous programmes following trophy hunting endangered animals”

As Kielder prepares for the reintroduction of lynx, Boudicca Fox-Leonard talks to the conservationist behind the idea

While conservationists have talked for years of reintroduction, it has taken Lynx UK Trust just three years to reach the point where, in as little as two months, lynx may be padding through UK forests once more.

The project has been spearheaded by Dr Paul O’Donoghue, chief scientific adviser to the Lynx UK Trust. After 20 years in conservation, … he says he was sick of people talking about restoring the lynx and “not having the guts to do it”.

“Here, in a country whose society had blown away all but a token remnant of its topmost competitors, was a force of top-flight ecologists, exposing the campaign as a colossal case of shooting one’s own foot.

Here was evidence that the biggest and scariest of carnivores were more dangerous by their absence”

More info on the Florida wildlife abusers. I can’t believe how much information has been linked to them. I also knew a manatee would be involved. They’re also linking a similar incident where baby chicks and loggerhead nests were run over in a all-terrain vehicle on Anna Maria Island. And this jerk want to say “I’m sorry” and all be forgotten.

But as I mentioned, it is heartening to see everyone agree that it is wrong, and to take steps to prevent behavior like this in the future:

“The videos show some of the men shooting fish with handguns and flare guns, pouring beer into the gills of a goliath grouper and the mouth of a hammerhead shark, harassing a manatee by putting a water hose into its mouth, pulling the wings of a white pelican, holding a dead dog while claiming to use it for shark bait and other abuse.”

…and with this D.C. Circuit ruling the Congressional types in MN, Mi and WI will ask for ESA changes along with the N and S Dakota Congressional types who don’t want any of those WGL wolves in the first place. All will join with the 17 Western states who want the ESA watered down. And the Tweeter in Chief will no doubt sign the legislation (or we get another one of those riders – way to go there CBD and HSUS, yeah way to go). Just wait. It’s gonna happen.

The DC appellate circuit is one of the most respected. However, most of the judges that sit on that bench have never been off a paved surface,don’t know shit about the West and certainly aren’t trained as wildlife managers and they should not second guess them. That is why the plaintiffs chose that forum. But then Congress does make and change laws reflecting the will of the people (supposedly anyway) over time.

I think MN could go this on its own and give the DC Court the middle finger if they wanted to under the law. Maybe they will just do that.

There are reasons, Louise, appellate (and trial) courts in different geographic locations within the US, make different rulings under the same Constitution, written laws and regulations. Why do you suppose that is?

Don’t the MN, WI and MI Congressional types have bills that are directed to helping their respective states out of the wolf listing/delisting seesaw? Maybe this DC appellate ruling will be the catalyst to kick it over the top. MN has about 3,000 wolves and a 3 judge panel won’t let them manage them as they see fit. There is a huge disconnect there, Louise.

“Sportsmen may ultimately prevail in Great Lakes endangered wolf ruling”

Excerpt: “While anti-hunting groups celebrated this week’s court ruling that maintains endangered species protections for the thriving wolf population in the Great Lakes, wildlife managers and sportsmen who would like to control wolf numbers may ultimately gain ground from the ruling.

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has voiced optimism that the ruling has provided a path forward to delisting. Following is a detailed analysis from Sportsmen’s Alliance.”

As Immer said, a war of words has begun. I had seen this earlier and considered posting it as well.

Wildlife advocates are not necessarily ‘anti-hunting groups’. And I don’t think anyone ‘celebrates’ victories where wolves are concerned anymore because it is a continual struggle. And in this article is the not-so-thinly veiled threat of weakening the ESA. I also agree in wondering if natural recolonization maybe would have been better.

It sounded to me that they are trying to put the arm on speculating that USF&W create a ‘distinct population segment’ designation in much the same way as is being tried with the Yellowstone grizzlies.

But is it beneficial to the species in the long run, or just more convenient for special interests? And is it more word games? I still wonder how it is that a certain corner of UT that does not have wolves got a tagalong delisting with WY and ID?

It definitely should get protections like Chesapeake Bay – it’s a magnificent place, the parts I have seen, between the wildlife, the ecosystem, bird flyways and even the seafood, like Chesapeake Bay. And talk about culture!

It’s a shame to see so much destroyed by oil drilling and chemical runoff.

Anyone who purchases the products of factory farming is in part responsible for this disaster…as well as the massive suffering of animals in these hellholes.

“Giant Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico Traced to Meat Industry”

Excerpt: “Tyson is responsible for one in every five pounds of meat produced in the United States. It slaughters 35 million chickens and 125,000 head of cattle every week and requires 5 million acres of corn a year for feed.”

I was camped on Lake McDonald in Glacier NP (then to the North Fork of the Flathead River outside the Park) with my mother, aunt and 14 year old cousin that very week. One can imagine how quickly news traveled even in 1967 with no cell phones and little am or fm radio reception, as campers talked with each other; I think there may have even been some signs up, and rangers having conversations with visitors. This scared quite a few campers. I know we were.

I appreciate what that story is trying to say, but it is dredged up every little while, that lurid headline. I don’t know if it is helpful.

FL wildlife abusers continuing story:

“Back in 2015, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission got a number of complaints about social media posts that showed a man mistreating birds, like the brown pelican and the cormorant, according to the Post. FWC officials took the posts to USFWS wildlife officials for joint investigation. Eventually, federal officials determined the man pictured had violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act seven times[emphasis mine]. When investigators tried to interview one of the men pictured, he requested his attorney.”

Ida, truth be told WA has one of the better wolf management plans around, with some well educated Commission and staff. They and WA constituents are tired of the conflict. So, cow eating Smackout pack is next for extermination. I made the prediction 3 years ago this stuff would start happening as population and conflict began to grow. It ain’t over yet, by a longshot. And, if a wolf went after my dog I would shoot it in a heartbeat and take my chances with the interpretation of the law.

I haven’t kept up with Washington’s, but I just read that Oregon’s wolf plan update is 2 years overdue, and has a whole host of problems such as incomplete information on whether use of non-lethal controls were adhered to. From Oregon Wild:

“Oregon Wild earlier this week sent a letter to Governor Kate Brown urging transparency and accountability in the wolf plan. Conservationists pointed to recent revelations of waste, fraud, and abuse in the taxpayer funded wolf depredation compensation plan as evidence of the state’s inability to hold livestock interests accountable to the law.”

Each state only has a hundred or so wolves, and is it correct to assume that too many killed will put them back on the protected list? That must be why only as many as they can get away with are being shot.

How ridiculous is it to release cattle to graze in a big, rugged landscape, with no or very little supervision, and then to act surprised when many of them cannot be accounted for? Got lost, predation, injuries, which came first – it’s too much for the public to accept.

And then, to top that (from the OPB article):

“A few years ago, prices spiked and Oregon’s cattle industry surpassed $900 million in total value, making it the state’s top agricultural industry. Prices have fallen since.”

One state alone. Does that sound like anybody is hurting financially to you or operating on slim margins?

WA and now OR are embracing the West’s mantra – ‘kill them but not so many that they are relisted again’. We all know it. Doesn’t take much expertise to create a ‘plan’ like that. The wolves in these states were not reintroduced either.

And, per the article Jerry linked to, this is the Colville Tribe’s 5th annual wolf hunting season. Something to be said for their common sense approach to wolf management on and off tribal lands where they also are trying to make a living raising cows.

I think the treaties already establish the privilege to hunt off reservation. They already do that for deer and elk. As for wolves, that appears to be new, but as Ida suggests how does that affect wolf count for an off reservation population of a protected species managed by WDFW. Maybe somebody knows how that part works.

Yes, who has rights to kill what doesn’t happen in a philosophical vacuum.

Meanwhile, another day, another shark abuse video. This isn’t the same guys, I don’t think – and comes with a warning for violence. And this one I think was sent to an animal welfare advocate,(a death threat, of sorts, I guess). It’s hard to believe people are capable of this stuff. Again, thanks to the sportsfishing community for reporting and cleaning up the trash:

“Members of the Wolf Advisory Group who worked with the agency all winter to craft its information policy for this season stated in the letter the agency was not living up to the parameters agreed to.”

Apparently four wolves were killed before the demand by the rancher for Smackout killings. Then the Colville tribe wants to additionally kill wovles. Funny how it all adds up, to more than two. If the department withholds information about the actual number of killings, they need to be taken to court. I’m glad the WAG is speaking up about it.

^^”That followed a July 14 report that belatedly revealed four wolves had died in Washington over the past year, including two under circumstances still being investigated. That was at least six weeks and in some instances months after the department had the information.”

So the Collville can take a maximum of 6, two have already been shot by F&W, and four somewhere along the line, two under questionable circumstance. I really hope we don’t have to read about any more wolf killings – that is 12 wolves right there. Will it trigger a relisting?

I certainly think tribal hunting rights ought to be honored, as long as it is sustainable and the heath of the species won’t be harmed in the long run. In this case I don’t think that’s true. These wolves have only just recovered, just over a hundred, and already humans are trigger happy.

Once again nonhuman animals pay for human animals’ ignorance and hubris: “Mountain goats are not native to the Olympic Peninsula; these goats descended from introductions in the 1920s.” http://wdfw.wa.gov/living/mountain_goats.html

Same thing plays out in Yellowstone:
” The goats were introduced by Montana wildlife officials back in the 1940s and 1950s, Garrott said, from native populations located in western Montana. The goats were introduced into several areas west of Yellowstone, including in the Madison Range.

“The convention of the time was to get animals on the landscape even though they were not native,” Garrott said. “People enjoy seeing them, and hunters enjoy pursuing them.”

SMH. Kill off wolves and bison and grizzlies, and then replace them like a zoo or game preserve. Now we want to kill them off because they are not native? (And we still don’t want the native wildlife) Well, we have an ethical obligation to living things; even with our idiosyncratic views.

“Summary of this reporter’s summer has included mountain fishing, dirt and wolves”

Excerpt from wolf report: “Sadly for wolf watchers, only four of the Junction Butte pack’s pups survived through 2016. What’s more, the alpha female, 970F, died two weeks after her estimated whelp date, according to the Yellowstone Wolf Project’s 2016 report. It was two of 970F’s daughters who gave birth to all of the pack’s pups.”

“If current law does not find this to be a prosecutable crime, I will present a bill this session that brings more clarity,” [Rep. Alex Miller,(R), Sarasota]Miller said in the post.”

This is about as wonderful an outcome as can be hoped for. T least one of the fishing tournaments has banned these abusers (I wish they’d come up with a better name for that shark tournament), and the Governor, F&W and the public all agree in wanting something to be done. I wish all wildlife abuse could be met with such a response:

I agree and disagree with Beckoff. The concept of conservation goes a bit deeper than what he alludes. Man has altered landscapes so much (throw in a warming planet) and things change. The meat supply of a buddy and his family up here is almost completely deer. Mining, logging, and folks feeding deer have opened NE, MN to this once rare in these parts ungulate.

Increased deer numbers certainly ripple through the ecology of the area in terms of damage to young forests, more wolves, and the primary and secondary effect of deer on moose. So much is written on the hunting industry and the $ generated. Just recently received my annual F&T Fur Trading Post catalogue. ( I don’t trap! I ordered my cable cutters, recommended by Carter Niemeyer from this outfit, so I receive their annual catalogue). 150 pages of traps and associated gear and literature. An industry unto itself.

I’ve got nothing against hunting to put meat on the table. But managing wildlife for highest sustainable yield smacks of managing wildlife like livestock. This opens The tool box of associated problems. I could go on and on, but most of these issues have been discussed here countless times over the past.

Some anti-hunters ignore that most hunting in place like where I live (MI) is for deer. The word does not even appear in the article. All hunting is painted as trophy hunting, which is never defined, a common ploy. There’s lots of types of hunting I don’t like either, but some anti’s don’t try hard at that low hanging fruit for some reason, but would rather generalize. I don’ think that’s very effective. Is having an effect even a goal?

Why do they insist upon deliberately bringing hunting dogs into wolf territory? And the are reimbursed for the loss of their hunting dogs on the taxpayers’ dime. I really hesitate in calling it a ‘depredation’. More like as assumed risk. What a racket.

Apparently, the WI DNR is not supposed to be handing out taxpayer-funded depredation payments like candy while an animal is an endangered, protected species.

The good news is that a criminal complaint has been filed against the hounders *and* the DNR by PEER:

“The PEER complaint asks the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to open criminal investigations of twenty-two individuals who engaged in hounding during the 2016 season in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest or on DNR-managed land and who also received wolf-related compensation for damage or loss of hounds from the state. If the agency determines that criminal take took place, PEER asks that the cases be referred to the U.S. Justice Department for prosecution.”

It should be noted that one of the guys ‘on the DNR dole’ was convicted of 3 counts of intentional abuse of animals (3 misdemeanors) – if you remember the story I think was posted here too about the guy who intentionally ran down 3 coyotes in a snowmobile, that was him. Also he has a misdemeanor bear poaching charge and a misdemeanor charge for resisting a warden. Let’s reward the guy with taxpayer money to replace his hunting dogs! He has received $5000 for ‘depredation’. 2017 is only half over, but as we see in the articles, almost $100,000.00 ($99,400.00) taxpayer dollars has been handed out for this state-approved scam.

What a fine, upstanding citizen! These people shouldn’t be allowed to own hunting dogs to abuse like this, or be allowed to hunt.

the risk of a dog used for hunting in a wolf territories will be injured or killed is approximately 1 in 9000 hunting days, if it is a lone wolf or a pair of wolves in the territory . If there is an entire family group in the territory the risk increases to 1 in 5000 hunting days.

In other words, with 150 hunters in a wolf territory hunting 20 days per season, so one can expect an attack every three years if there is a wolf pair in the territory and every two years if there is a family group.

It has also been shown that there is a difference between wolf damage depends on what breed of dog used for hunting:

Another interesting connection that scientists have seen is that dogs exercising in an exercise yard or kennel run less risk of being injured or killed by wolves.

The reason for this is not clear, but one theory is that these dogs are more “socialized” than dogs staying indoors. And through this social skills so can the kennel dogs manage wolves in a smoother manner.

Ida have you been around hunting dogs? Do you know the time/money investment that goes into making a good hunting dog? Its a lot. And no one I know would willingly start over.. Not taking hunting dogs into “wolf” country would basically be all of Idaho. And thousands of people come to Idaho each year to hunt birds. And I hunt birds 100+ days a year and have not had a conflict. Though some followed my buddies dog back but did not engage the dog.

Here’s a recent article. If it is a tradition, let them pay for it themselves. And it mostly concerns abusers of the ‘system’, not all hunters everywhere who do follow the rules:

“He [Adam Carlesco, PEER] said Wisconsin is the only state that reimburses dog owners in addition to farmers and livestock owners for wolf depredation.”

“A relatively small number of hunters are “repeat offenders.” He asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate 22 individuals. The list includes one who was compensated for three different wolf encounters in nine days[emphasis added] and another who has been convicted of poaching and intentional mistreatment of animals who was compensated twice for the loss of dogs.”

Josh – for those that go out of their way to put their good hunting dogs in harms way, there is insurance for that:

Additional/Optional Perils
Accidental Shooting (except by the Insured or employees of the Insured);
Drowning;
Artificial Electricity;
Attack by dogs or wild animals;
Collapse of building; and
Theft (death of animal need not be a factor

I have looked into that, I just assume that there are risks involved every time I cut dogs loose. For them and me. I have known dogs to die from impaling, heat stroke and many other things that happen while hunting. I would obviously protect my dogs from any wolf etc if the need arises. I hope it never does!

I think running dogs in wild animal
Habitat is poor policy and inherently stressful for all wildlife

The last time I encountered a hunting dog was opening of hunting season at dog town Massachusetts where, unaware of opening day, my friend and I went to hike

A huge short haired pointer raced through the woods unleashed and we hear baying throughout the woods
It was a sickening sound
I could only imagine the terror of the wild animals being chased by the dogs

The pointer threaten my German shepherd aggressively
To prevent a fight I yelled at the owner to come get his dog wherby he replied it was hunting season and I should not have my leashed dog in the woods

That sound of dogs loose chasing a scent is so disturbing
What a hell we have created for wild animals

Hunting dogs are also routinely misused in some areas of the country
It’s a sick twisted perversion

Excerpt: “The National Butterfly Center staff is used to running into U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents on their land, which is along the Rio Grande, but they were surprised to find a government work crew on July 20.

“-US firm sells genetically engineered salmon to retailers in Canada.
-First time a genetically modified animal has been sold for food on the open market.
-Company claims GM fish can reach adult size in just 18 months.”

Excerpt: “It’s a world first … The first genetically modified animal is on the market, and consumers in Quebec and Canada will become the first guinea-pigs unknowingly. In the absence of mandatory labeling we still cannot make an informed choice,” said Thibault Rehn, a coordinator at Vigilance GMO.

“Some concerns have also been raised about cross breeding with wild fish but AquaBounty said its fish are sterile and are only being raised in landlocked tanks.”

I’d contradict your reasoning, but you failed to give any. Your aim is horrible too – FDA approved this during Obama administration, and even then I wouldn’t blame the administration, it’s just about science and risk assessment. Conservationists being anti-science though use of knee-jerk naturalistic fallacy and genetic illiteracy is not good for our image. The right wing often points to left wing anti-science attitudes just like this – you are giving them ammunition. Let the other folks corner the anti-science territory please.
Kathleen did slightly better – but I’m not very concerned with these genes getting out into wild fish because even if fertile fish did escape, the genes will not improve fitness of wild fish.

As a person concerned with aquatic ecology I’m not fond of most fish farming in general, since most of it is not nearly perfect. I’ll also admit this solution is strictly a for a tiny first world problem of the privileged, hardly a golden rice or Bt cotton win. Still, it attempts to make a slight gain in efficiency of raising salmon for those privileged people.

Please take a moment to read this editorial that succinctly illustrates the problems inherent in wildlife management. It is written by two well informed, articulate, respected wildlife specialists/scientists. This editorial assessment of the need to reform wildlife management is equally urgent for the corruption and disastrous policies taking place in state wildlife agencies across the United States.

Comment: Wildlife-management reform is long overdue
The underpinnings of contemporary wildlife management are political and ideological, largely at the expense of wildlife for the presumed benefit of people. Unsurprisingly, wildlife management in . . .
TIMESCOLONIST.COM

“When the Yellowstone grizzly population is truly recovered, a key sign will be that more bears leave Yellowstone and travel successfully across their former range to breed with other populations. That is not happening now — not in Yellowstone, not in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, and certainly not in the Yaak Valley. There, the Forest Service has declared its intent to execute another kind of “taking” by giving passive authorization to trail building on public land. Trails mapped and co-opted by a thru-trail hiking association, the Pacific Northwest Trail Association, will send thousands of thru-hikers into the heart of designated endangered Yaak grizzly habitat.”

OK Rork,
fair enough. It’s true I did not provide any reasoning for my lashing out. My contempt for most fish farming, and now GMO fish, dates back to my days at NOAA.

I spent a fair bit of time at fish farming sites and at runs in California filming a documentary about dam removal and the benefits to wild populations of salmon when the dams were removed.

It was then that I interviewed fish farmers, scientists and managers about their thoughts and concerns about fish farming impacting native populations, harming genetic diversity and or otherwise creating problems in wild populations of salmonids.

You said, that people like myself risk “being (perceived as) anti-science though use of knee-jerk naturalistic fallacy and genetic illiteracy.

But stating that, “its just about science and risk assessment” is a fairly simplistic analysis of why the government and NOAA have been behind fish farming and GMO production.

You are correct that the Obama administration was favoring GMO production and offshore fish farming, as have others so I stand reminded. But this is not just about science and risk assessment, its about money and production goals linked to reaching those goals.

NOAAs position, when it comes to fish farming or wild fisheries, has rarely been precautionary. In this instance ,the administration sees a deficit in salmon production caused by declines in populations, and thus has supported farming in general to augment the loss of harvest. But that is an economic consideration. NOAA has worked hard to produce data to support their position for more productivity.

Despite the bolstering of their position to green light farming and or GMO production, many of the agency’s own scientists expressed major concerns about inadvertently introducing GMO salmon into wild populations that are already struggling.

We have little understanding of how these fish might impact populations when they escape or how resilient native species may be to genetic tinkering, and virtually no studies exist to support what I consider to be a reckless enterprise. How could they, this is new stuff.

You wrote, “but I’m not very concerned with these genes getting out into wild fish because even if fertile fish did escape, the genes will not improve fitness of wild fish.” I understand what you are trying to say, that the introduction of these genes will not make the new fish more competitive or at least that is what you believe from the paucity of data that actually exists. But what of the potential to weaken populations, their ability to reproduce, olfactory memory ect?

NOAA and our agencies might try removing more dams, work to reduce fishing effort to allow the species to recover so that native wild populations become more sustainable for human consumption and as food for other species instead of looking for ways to end run around the original problem.

History shows salmon existed in tributaries, rivers and estuaries without for 18–22 million years. Something about their genetic history must have been replicated and preserved for them to be so successful up until the 1900s when we began decimating their populations.

It seems glib, and perhaps a bit pedantic, to insist that this is only about science and risk assessment. Science always evolves as we test theories and learn from data.

The possibility of releasing potentially harmful genes that may further weaken salmonid species reproduction and future survival seems a very real threat to me. I prefer a precautionary approach and trust evolutionary process much more than I do human tinkering, with its oft disastrous results.

while two of these publications are not technical white papers they do a good job of summing up my concerns.

As brief and on point as ever.
I am more concerned about the genetic risks of augmented “wild caught” (not “wild”) Alaskan runs than I am about GMO salmon as currently approved. Most of that last article you link is worried about the dangers of GMOs in open net-pens, which is not approved.

I have a better summary. Almost all of what you have said is about what is bad about fish farming. Consider how many of these things are made worse by the means that are used with this new GMO salmon compared to other farmed Atlantics. I can’t think of a single one, and on some points the new salmon is an improvement – more care to limit escape and breeding, less pollution per pound of fish, less disease risk due to isolation and shorter life perhaps.

It makes salmon farming less bad.

The one new concern might be that the genetic risk of the new gene is more than the genes of other farmed salmon, and I don’t think that’s true, partly because of the expectation of fewer escapes of fertile fish. The number of genetics deaths I expect from the new gene is way lower than the number I expect from ordinary inbred escapes, cause the later are much more common and fertile.

why do either as proposed. I suggested removing dams, lowering catch and reducing fishing effort as well as improving habitat. Your argument seems to be that GMO is less potentially harmful than current fish farming. Mine is that neither should be introduced especially when salmon populations, already historically low and imperiled, face unknown risks.

The Red Wold Coalition posted some photos on their Facebook page showing what appear to be red wolves in East Texas. No official ID yet, but hopeful stuff considering the decline of the east coast population:

Worth watching the ebb and flow of humans, planning their vacations, come summer, around this simple eruption of a geyser.

But do any of these good folks know how much more there is to this huge national park they chose to visit? Filled with all sorts of wildlife and natural beauty, if one wants to actually get out of their comfort zone and explore?

Old Faithful is pretty fascinating though, I remember seeing it throughout my visit, even one evening. Maybe that was the best time.

Perseids at their peak tonight, btw! I’ve been forgetting to watch all week.

I love this time of year, the baby birds are all fledging, and still begging their parents to feed them. Very cute, with their scruffy feathers. Even hummingbirds with scruffy feathers, so I hope they are this year’s young. 🙂

We can perhaps gain leisure and wealth by making the green world and it’s animal communities impoverished and ghastly to see, but it’s removing much of that which I wanted the leisure and wealth for.
Less migrating fish impoverishes even the far upstream localities including plant communities, as most people know.

But I suppose the solution to that is dumping more dangerous chemical pesticides into the water? Nobody is anti-science, but it’s like the more we tinker, the more problems we create, but we just can’t stop ourselves.

There really is no magic bullet to fix the problems we have created by human overpopulation, and our modern lifestyles.

“Salmon producers have largely used pesticides to try to eliminate the problem, but some strands of sea lice have grown immune to the problem. Salmons farmers, who have lost millions thanks to sea lice, have invested heavily in developing farms where the pest cannot thrive. One $71 million project from the Norwegian company Nordlaks aims to help fish avoid tight confines at a length of nearly five football fields.”

A human enters the mountain goat’s home high in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness and feels threatened by the goat…and kills her. A warden speculates that the goat might simply have been wanting to get past her on the trail. Why didn’t the hiker just turn around?

Sad. But anyway the majority of the comments don’t think shooting was necessary. It also appears that they are becoming habituated to human presence, being fed by people, etc. But when in doubt, kill is the MO of the West.

One of the comments:

“Bang Bang Bang!
That’ll teach you to be a wild animal on my mountain.”

That’s pretty much a good, general summation about Western attitudes toward any kind of wildlife.

“A Change.org petition calling for charges against a group of Gulf Coast men who recorded themselves dragging a battered shark behind a speeding boat has collected more than a quarter- million signatures. Organizers plan to present the petition to local State Attorney Ed Brodsky on Monday, said spokesman A.J. Walton.”

Excerpt: “Monterey County’s previous contract authorized Wildlife Services to kill hundreds of coyotes, as well as bobcats, mountain lions and other animals every year without fully assessing the ecological damage or considering alternatives. For example, from June 2014 to June 2015, Wildlife Services killed 105 coyotes, three mountain lions and two bobcats in the county. Over the past six years, Wildlife Services has killed more than 3,500 animals in Monterey County using traps, snares and firearms.”

… Mustelids in general have quite interesting adaptations with regards to biting, in that the temporal muscle attachments are elongated towards the back of the skull. This presumably allows for a more backward orientation for the temporal muscle force vector which theoretically would act counter to the movements of struggling prey. This sort of mechanical performances are irrespective of force generation, or in other words, their muscle arrangements are in such a way that even with lower muscle forces (or bite forces), they can still efficiently catch and handle prey. Remember, bite force is not the only thing to biting.

“Wolves are a waste of resources” opinion piece full of fake “facts”–e.g.,

“…well managed grazing increases wildlife diversity and populations, controls invasive weeds and reduces the risk of wildfire. Doing these activities through the use of local ranchers decreases costs for the taxpayer.”

http://nwsportsmanmag.com/headlines/atlantic-salmon-escape-fish-farm-some-caught-in-bham-bay/
There are many other articles like it about escape of quite a few “farmed” Atlantic salmon out of floating pen nets. Another article from the site above talks about some anglers catching allot – there is no limit on the number you are allowed to kill. I was a bit shocked by the pen holding 300K fish. Things went bad during the huge tides close to eclipse. I have no idea about what penalties come with this.

Excerpt: “New footage released to DeSmog Canada shows deformed and disfigured salmon at two salmon farms on the B.C. coast — just as British Columbia reels from news of the escape of up to 305,000 Atlantic farmed salmon from a Washington salmon pen.

“Wild salmon advocate and fisheries biologist Alexandra Morton said she was shocked by the footage.

“I was shocked and frankly disgusted,” Morton told DeSmog Canada. “These fish have open sores, sea lice, blisters all over their skin and a disturbing number of them are going blind.”

I’m not shocked by this at all. Depite the repeated assurances that ‘nothing will happen, we’ve got everything under control’ – there’s plenty of company histories of greed, cutting corners, profit first, human error, etc. so that we know nothing we do is every going to go according to what we’re promised.

Does this company come under the USDA for inspections, fines, etc?

We should concentrate our energies on protecting native fish, not create ever more threats to them!

I’m used to wild-caught salmon being labeled as such, and farmed fish being labeled as farmed, but it was hard for me to find the rules, and that might not be true for smoked or cooked fish. If it’s wild caught you’d usually want people to know. I do see articles saying that label is sometimes a lie though. There was some uproar that GMO salmon wouldn’t need to be labeled as GMO, but I expect non-GMO farmed salmon may start making non-GMO claims (like many other products do). Frankly I was hoping GMO salmon would be labeled, along with claims that it is more responsibly produced. I do see closed-system salmon farms make claims on their labels. I almost never buy fish, but I will always study any fish, in the water, or on the ice in a store, and even ask questions.

After reading more about these escapees and the history there, I’m not quite as concerned as I was to start with. A few pacific salmon smolts will get eaten, but I don’t expect increased disease over what was happening already, and chances they’ll invade or pollute gene pools are tiny. I still don’t want net pens in the great lakes though. Some types of aquaculture might actually help feed people, but salmonid farming is not an example of that. That part of the Seattle editorial was bad – I’m amazed.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/cool takes time to study but does say down the “7 CFR Part 60” link that country of origin and method (wild-caught, farmed) does need to be labeled, but there are exceptions (restaurants – so ask them). Near me, Cisco and Menominee (Round whitefish) each have about 5 common names.

“Exclusive: Trump team goes to bat for NRA-backed bill, deleting Park Service concerns”

Excerpt: “The National Park Service has several big problems with NRA-backed legislation that would restrict the agency from regulating hunting and fishing within park boundaries. But according to a leaked memo obtained by McClatchy, the Trump administration has so far prevented the parks from voicing such concerns.

And while we’re on the topic of micro-managing the national parks for the benefit of hunters, NRA, state agencies, and industry…there’s this from 3 months ago (I missed it at the time):

“Effort to ban plastic water bottles in national parks would end under budget deal”

Excerpt: “At the behest of the International Bottled Water Association, Congress is preparing to approve a must-pass budget bill that includes language aimed at restoring the sale of water in disposable plastic bottles in all national parks.

“For nearly six years, national parks have had the option of banning bottled-water sales as a way to reduce plastic litter and waste management costs. From Cape Hatteras to the Grand Canyon, more than 20 park units have instituted the ban after first installing public drinking-water stations for visitors carrying reusable bottles.”

EXCERPT: “SALT LAKE CITY – Federal scientists and mostly rural interests are gathering at a wild horse conference in Utah that mustang-protection advocates maintain is a thinly veiled effort to promote increased roundups and eventual slaughter of tens of thousands of animals from California to Colorado without public input.”

I suppose they think now that with a Republican majority, they have a good audience and want to strike while the iron is hot, for just about everything.

But this will be heard ’round the world, and only underscore America’s ugly reputation. We will no longer have anything unique about America.

Ugly and the same from one coast to the other with concrete, asphalt and tacky fast food signs everywhere. Traveling overseas, that’s one thing I hate – tacky American fast food signs. I want the culture of the place I am visiting.

“Interior secretary recommends Trump alter at least three national monuments, including Bears Ears”

“In a report Zinke submitted to the White House, the secretary recommended reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as well as Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to multiple individuals briefed on the decision.

…Zinke, who had called for revising Bears Ears’ boundaries in an interim report in June, is recommending a “significant” reduction in its size, an administration official said.”

Was up in the mountains this past weekend and came across a band of sheep with the attendant guard dogs, not sure the breed; five of them. The next day I went thru the same area, same band of sheep, no guard dogs. Went down the road about 1/2 mile and there were all five guard dogs feeding on a carcass about 30 yards off the road. Could not clearly see what it was but pretty sure it was not a sheep; too big, and that would leave a cow. So the questions are; was it a downer that was hauled there by the sheep rancher, a carcass that the guard dogs were scavenging, or did they kill it. All I know was there was some serious eating going on.

The first day the herder was down with the band and was with two other herding dogs probably healers. waved to him, I assume a migrant worker from Peru, which is where most of the actual headers come from as I understand it. They tend to be friendly.
They provide any care for the dogs that IS provided. There are plenty of streams around for water, and as for food……well that is a question isn’t it.

A few years ago, guard dogs were put in place (by an organization) on a cattle ranch over by Wisdom, hopefully to help curb predation by wolves on their cattle.

Steve, you out there?

I recall there were 2 of these big dogs and they roamed a much bigger area than what they were originally “hired” to care take, on this ranch.

Feed stations (as in your basic dry dog food dispensers) were set up here and there for them but given the percentage of cattle that just die, from a host of other reasons that don’t include predation, out on not only private land but public lands?

I can see these dogs (hey, they are carnivores, right?) taking full advantage of any fresh (or dead) meat that might come their way.

“As HuffPost previously reported, President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget calls for a $300 million reduction to the U.S. Forest Service’s wildfire fighting programs, another $50 million in cuts to its wildfire prevention efforts and a 23 percent reduction in funding for volunteer fire departments.”

Excerpt: “SALT LAKE CITY — Bears Ears National Monument could be reduced to 160,000 acres, according to a New York Times report citing unnamed congressional aides familiar with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s monument report given to President Donald Trump on Thursday.

“That Bears Ears’ boundaries are under consideration for reduction is no surprise given Zinke’s announcement in July that the 1.35 million-acre monument in San Juan County should be “right-sized.” …

…”“Secretary Zinke’s recommendation is an insult to tribes. He has shown complete disregard for sovereign tribes with ancestral connections to the region, as well as to the hundreds of thousands of people who have expressed support for Bears Ears National Monument,” stated Carleton Bowekaty, Zuni councilman and Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition co-chairman.”

Act before Aug. 29th: Help save Florida panthers (from Animal Defenders International): “Only 160-180 Florida panthers now remain, living in less than 5% of their historic range. The species face increasing and evolving threats including habitat loss/degradation due to climate change and human growth/development.”
…
“The US Fish and Wildlife Service is now conducting its 5-year status review for the Florida panther, under the Endangered Species Act.”

…
Submit your comment before August 29th to: David Shindle, South Florida ES Field Office, US Fish and Wildlife Service at david_shindle@fws.gov or online here.
If you live in Florida, please urge the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to protect panthers.”

“But earlier in the meeting, Commissioner Daniel Blanco questioned Fish and Game employees about getting reliable wolf population numbers out of concern the agency could face lawsuits. Fish and Game officials said they were working on a process to get those numbers but it wasn’t yet available.”

“Idaho hunters are already allowed to kill wolves attracted to bait put out for bears.”

Killing nonhuman animals for “sport” is bad enough…but killing them over bait–it takes a really small, dishonorable, and depraved person to do that. Does that fall in the category of what hunters call “fair chase”?

Some of us think that baiting for anything is wrong, but that’s a modern “sportsman” aesthetic thing, as well as it leading to some extra restraint in killing since it can make it harder. In MI bait for deer is legal, and I was astonished to see recently that 71% of deer hunters approve. Arguments go that it lets people take better shots, increases deer kill which is often a good thing, can make deer appear on land where they wouldn’t (that the owner is too lazy or cheap to improve – imagine a 20 acre aspen desert), and is economically good for folks growing the food. We allow it for bear too, which is mostly cause hunters wouldn’t kill enough otherwise, or it’d be so hard even less people would show up – fine with me. These things are argued to pieces at places like Michigan-sportsman, and dozens like it. For deer I argue that it screws up natural deer behavior, which is bad for me, and that it’s more effective and enjoyable to alter where you hunt, and that half of the skill involved is choosing those spots. Further bait is like a warning for experienced deer – they might come at midnight though. So it’s counterproductive unless you lack skills. I try and never use the same tree twice, whereas master baiters may use the same damn stand all year. Borrrrrriiing.

Apologies if this was already posted a couple of weeks ago. Wolverine researcher:

““Advocacy” is such a tricky, dirty word – I cringe when I see it. But I think that scientists are going to have to deal with the damage that’s been wrought by decades of concerted anti-science propaganda by special interest groups. This stuff has been incredibly effective at sowing doubt not just about specific issues or wildlife species, but about the entire scientific endeavor. At some point, the people doing the science have to speak up about the meta-issues, about things like what we mean when we talk about objectivity or uncertainty or “truth.””

Was it really necessary to describe “advocacy” as a tricky, dirty word? It reminds me of an article I once read where the leading sentence was: “I’m not an environmentalist, but….” Needless to say the comments were critical, and proclaimed that they were environmentalists with great pride, including me!

I know that many people think the way to progress is to appeal to people in this way, but it really does nothing but confirm the mainstream putdowns of those whose only crime is trying to protect wildlife from extinction and abuse; a healthy and vigorous environment, including clean air and water for the people!

She’s right though in that there comes a time where one must speak up.

Wilderness Watch has analyzed the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act and concludes that it guts the Wilderness Act and threatens every unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Their conclusion:

“The wilderness provisions in the SHARE Act significantly weaken the Wilderness Act in many important ways. These provisions strike at the heart of the Wilderness Act’s primary purpose,and would allow damaging manipulations to occur in every Wilderness in the nation if managers
could concoct some connection to fish and wildlife management, or recreation connected to fish and wildlife. Taken in combination, the provisions in the SHARE Act would completely undermine the protections that wilderness designation should provide, and dramatically weaken
wilderness conservation for the entire 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. These wilderness provisions in the SHARE Act must not be enacted into law.”

Thanks, Kathleen, for the link to the analysis of the SHARE Act from Wilderness Watch. A footnote caught my eye, referring to questions about the 2012 version of the act from then Representative Martin Heinrich. I noticed he was one of the few Democrats who voted for the 2012 Act after his amendment was defeated.
Heinrich, now a Senator from New Mexico, helped push through the Senate version of the Sportsmen’s Act. I don’t claim to fully understand the machinations of Congress, but I imagine the two bills will be reconciled once the SHARE Act passes the House.
Now up for re-election, Heinrich claims to be a big supporter of wilderness.

Pinsker: You started at Meatingplace in 2008. How have you seen the industry change since then?

Keefe: Coming here from a marketing publication was very interesting, because the meat industry has traditionally not done almost any sort of marketing, nor has it had to: Ninety-six percent of consumers in the United States eat some sort of meat at least occasionally, and it used to be that they bought whatever package of ground beef was at the store. That obviously has changed. There’s a whole segment of the industry that has gone very heavily into marketing points of differentiation, whether that’s no antibiotics, or free-range, or whatever it is that these buzzwords mean—and they mostly don’t mean what consumers think they mean. Still, the vast majority of products moving through the system and into people’s shopping carts are conventionally raised and not particularly marketed to anybody.

But now you have a greater awareness of how communication can make a difference. You still have an industry that says, “We don’t have to communicate to anybody, because we haven’t done that in 250 years.” And that’s the cultural part of the industry that puts it at a disadvantage when faced with criticism from the folks who would say, “You’re raising the animals inhumanely,” or “Everybody should be vegan,” or whatever it is the anti-meat folks are saying at any particular time. The meat industry has a difficult time—it’s better than it used to be—but it’s had a difficult time responding, because culturally it just never has had to.

Pinsker: Can you elaborate on why people in the industry are resistant to responding to these, as you say, anti-meat folks?

Keefe: People don’t ever ask me about my work! I tell people I work for a meat magazine and the conversation ends. So there’s a little bit of pent-up energy in talking about what we do.

Pinsker: What do you think is at the bottom of that?

Keefe: Well, it’s a squeamish process. Have you ever seen the eyelashes on a cow? I mean, they’re just adorable. Big eyes, and these long lashes—how can you do anything to harm this little creature? I get it. Even people who really love meat don’t want to talk about how it gets to their plate.

Same thing happens to me when I tell people I’m an animal rights activist and vegan–the conversation stops. They don’t wanna know…apparently it’s threatening to their comfy status quo. Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable–cow’s eyelashes and all that. A reminder that we’re animals, too.

“…the meat industry has traditionally not done almost any sort of marketing…” Well, that’s disputable. “Beef, it’s what for dinner.” “Pork, the other white meat.” “Pork, be inspired.” And then there’s the relentless advertising of fast food meat purveyors…”It’s finger lickin’ good.” “Eat mor chikin.” “Arbys. We’ve got the meats.” “Where’s the beef?” etc. I did an Earth Day program on factory farming for high school kids when I lived in MT and showed them a PowerPoint slide of fast food logos one on top of another and asked “Do you remember a time when you *didn’t* recognize these?” to illustrate how aggressively they’ve been marketed to (and brainwashed) practically since birth. I showed them a photo of factory farmed chickens who’d been de-beaked with hot blades to prevent neurotic pecking when they’re crammed in warehouses on top of each other–stunned silence. The industry doesn’t advertise *that* kind of stuff.

And then there’s the fallout for the earth and wildlife–air pollution, water pollution, rainforest destruction.

Médem subverts the conventions of the family saga by replacing the human subjectivity of conventional melodrama and historical epics with a diffidence about life and death that is expressed through the uninterested gaze of the cows.The title of the film refers to the passive omnipresence of cows. The political and social climate of the Basque country of Spain is constantly in flux, yet the cows of the region are steadfast and calm, observing the unusual changing human culture without reaction. Instead of a society that is traditionally presented as oppressed and belittle by exterior forces, Vacas presents the Basque people as a race that, in petty rivalries, civil war and incest, has consumed itself from within.Most characters wish for nothing more than to escape the supposed idyll of the Basque Country, though those who do are fated to return and suffer the consequences of inescapable roots and blood ties. Médem further illustrates the cyclical nature of the unresolved strife and vacillating alliance by using the same actor to portray generations of characters. Instead of typifying the beauty of the land, the mist of the basque Valley create a malignant atmosphere that enshrouds the protagonists of Vacas, stimulating and manifesting their latent desires and urges

Cows are definitely curious, but not *always* passive. Plenty of heart-breaking videos online show mother dairy cows as their newborn calves are stolen from them to become veal (if males) and exploited dairy cows (if female). The mom cows cry, bellow, call, run after their babies, try to run down the kidnapper, etc. Plant-based milk is the way to go–all the nutrition, none of the cruelty.

They all have personalities too – I remember visiting a small dairy where they make home-made icecream, and the cow appear to be well treated (you can visit), but in chains. Some were friendly, some were curious, some were shy and timid.

I thank God for my grandmother, and that I am from a generation not that far removed from raising their own food. She loved animals, and when the ‘time’ came as a child she said she used to run and hide. I think she passed along that love of animals to us. 🙂

That some people ever ate horsemeat during time of poverty she spoke of in hushed tones, as if it were something to be ashamed of. 🙂 hat should never be done ordinarily.

The farther modern people are from what happens to animals used for food, the less they will care about inhumane and cruel practices.

Yes, humans have certainly been sold a load to be so totally convinced that they *need* to give their children the nursing fluid of another species…AND continue drinking it themselves into adulthood! The great news is…dairy profits are declining.

I always had a nagging feeling about eating meat, I was raised in the same way most were, but we didn’t have meat as a huge part of our diet.

After the first mad cow scare and I saw so many animals being destroyed as if they were nothing, I gave it up. A person asked me if it was for health reasons, and I wondered if it had even occurred to him that it was about animal abuse and suffering.

Don’t miss it and more than that, am thankful when I see the continual downward slide of this industry because of increased demands from increasing human population.

Reading this thread reminded me of a story I read in Orion Magazine quite a few years back. Ida’s comment about being from a generation not that far removed from raising their own food spurred it.

Both of my parents were of that ‘raise your own food’ generation. My full blood, Muscogee dad from here in Indian Territory and my White mom from Deep South both grew up raising their own food. My mom hated the farming life. She expressed her aversion to anything ‘farming, country, or even gardening’ all of my life. “Nothing but work. Hard work. All day, everyday, you work. Everyone works from the youngest to the oldest. Everyone had jobs. Even at the youngest age even if all you could do was carry firewood. You had a job.” She left the South, landed in a city and never left the city. Did not even have the desire to plant a small vegetable garden.

This story, “Out West” is fitting for the WLN. The writing is damned good. The writer takes you through a lifetime of growing up “Out West” and captures the essence of growing up ‘living off the land’ and expresses hard truths. I like this author’s style and his writing voice. Rereading this story, I noticed elements I missed when I read it years ago. It is especially poignant in today’s America where people like the Bundy’s receive no conviction for destruction of property and artifacts during an armed take over of government property. Quite a different response to the Bundy gang’s insurrection than the response to the peaceful and unarmed Native American Water Protectors along the Cannonball River. So many got trumped up felony charges while attempting to protect the bones of their ancestors and their source water. But that is where we are in America, Christian Nation that some would have you believe it is; where Donald Trump is Jesus’s man of high morals and Jimmy Carter is due an exorcism.

This story covers many things we talk about on the WLN. A small except from the beginning:

“My grandfather broke my reverie. He took me by the shoulders, told me I had done a good, hard thing and done it well. He told me to be careful that it always remained a hard thing to do. “Easy isn’t any good,” he said. “If it ever gets easy — quit.”

“Climate change, extensive wolf control in other areas and logging in British Columbian rain forests — which left decades worth of shrubby moose food in place of ancient trees — encouraged the moose to expand its territory. They traveled from their flat boreal forests homes to the rugged rain forests in southern British Columbia and Idaho where mountain caribou live”

Or… just get the hell out of these wilderness areas (as in human intervention) before its to late to save them 🙂

There are a few big fires but as you can see from the InciWeb site, there are also many small fires (most caused lightning) and some have been burning for a month or more but not a lot of acreage. A case of

We had flooding this spring near Saginaw Bay that wiped out some crops and homes. We got no handouts. Low cost loans was as good as it got.
I’m not saying Montana (with vast public holdings that we don’t expect residents to pay upkeep for or problems with) doesn’t deserve help, but I’m a bit angry when places with infamously high risk of certain disasters do not do enough about them, and also expect the rest of us to pay for their failure to plan for the inevitable. It is only fair that if you live in a risky place it is you that should pay for the risk management. Cost of living there should be high. I get that federal property needs fixing, is often not insured (which makes sense – insurance is for folks who can’t stand the losses), and that we all get to pay for it.

“…. but I’m a bit angry when places with infamously high risk of certain disasters do not do enough about them, and also expect the rest of us to pay for their failure to plan for the inevitable.”

This statement should also apply to Houston, all of the GOM (LA is said to be losing a football field of wetlands per hour!);and all along the east coast and everywhere else in America.

I get that all the rich people want a house right on the beach where they can ‘see the water’, or that Houston, TX doesn’t want any regulations to hinder the oil refineries, but should should innocent ‘regular joes’ on a 20-50K/year income get nothing for their losing everything in their lives? The fact that the rich decision makers can remove barrier islands, wetlands and all of the natural land/water elements that decrease disasters is not something you or I will ever be able to stop.

It isn’t just Montana or the West. We can start with the east coast, move south all the way to the Keys, come back up then and cross over to the west all the way to CA. No regulations. No zoning. No planning. It’s in many places.

I don’t believe innocent people should have to pay just because they need to earn a living. I do think the rich b*stards that want no regulations, no planning, no zoning and no desire to keep the natural land/water that reduce disasters should pay.

If the percentage we pay was based on whether our vote protected habitats I might get on board.

Should the people in the GOM who are dealing with the massive deadline pay because there are way too many midwesterners using far too much herbicides and pesticides?

+1 I don’t see how all of the massive infrastructure and changes/repairs this nation needs can be afforded. I hope more will be done than just putting a bandaid on the problem until the next time. This is what comes of kicking the can down the road.

A natural, healthy buffer zone is needed.

An interesting article from the NYT. The comments are good too. I loved the term “sprawling omnivorously”:

Rescuing bats in Houston…not only because it’s the right thing to do–bats are sentient and value their lives–but also because they will help with the hoards of mosquitoes that will breed in standing water. Two short rescue videos are in the article below.

so our dear friend Tom Sommer went elk hunting in MT. decided to tangle with a Grizzly this morning. Tom didn’t win but he made it out alive after a 5 mile mule ride after the incident. he is in hospital being stitched up. I will have more info as it trickles in. one thing is certain. there is no way the bear survived that bite. smile emoticon:). apparently Tom pulled his pistol but bear swiped it out of his hand. sounds like Tom was saved by quick thinking friend with pepper spray. I am sure lots more to Come,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, UPDATE,,,,, ok people. Tom just called. he is alive and well. in a little hospital in Ennis, MT. 90 stitches in his head. so the story goes they are on a ridge working elk, they spot a griz at 30 yards so Tom yells at it. Tom says apparently Griz don’t like to be yelled at. it charged. tom And partner Dan both pulled out pepper spray. Dan sprayed but Toms spray didn’t work so bear came after Tom. Tom ran behind a tree, bear kept coming. apparently bear chased Tom around tree twice, Tom got his pistol out turned to shoot, bear knocked his hand down. Tom hit ground. bear bit through thigh then put toms head in his mouth. while head in mouth tom tried to shoot bear in neck but bear stepped on hand /gun. Tom said he could hear his skull cracking. thought that was it. Dan shot bear at 2 feet with pepper spray. that’s all it took. bear ran off and tom shot at it but said he couldn’t see anything from all the blood and pepper spray in his face. 4 hours later after several hours on back of mule he is alive and in hospital. great spirits. was laughing. hope I did his story justice………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………UPDATE…… crazy bastard is being released today!!!!!!

Newscasts seem compelled to use those photos of captive grizzlies who are trained to open their mouths wide to show all their teeth–I suppose most viewers just see a crazed, vicious killer and miss the details–the bear was surprised while feeding and decided to defend himself and his food. One moral of this story–know how to use your bear spray and test it out before you go.

Excerpt: “Two small black bear cubs were sent to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks rehabilitation center in Helena on Tuesday after humans chasing the bears to snap photos separated the still-nursing cubs from their mother near Harlowton.”

These places now are turning into glorified amusement parks, and the more people they accommodate, the worse it will get. Good luck trying to educate, even getting people to clean up after themselves seems to be too difficult nowadays. So between getting hit by cars and clueless visitors, the wolves are better off elsewhere.

People today cannot appreciate wildlife and wild places for what they are, and so they do not deserve them, IMO.

Wouldn’t the constant noise at the nation’s 5th busiest airport be harmful to bison, or do planners even consider that? The only consideration is that it will be a tourist draw for people, I guess. Extreme noise can be detrimental to animal health as well as human.

The buffalo that are there (think zoo) are probably use to the constant noise, Ida and IMHO this is not going to benefit buffalo already there, by adding more buffalo, it’s absurd to think so.

200 additional acres is a joke and will be consumed in no time (especially if they add to those numbers) and then the RMANWR will be left with winter feeding so the DIA can now offer photo ops, complete with a warm, fuzzy feeling about what it use to be like out here in the west, where the buffalo use to roam AND isn’t it nice to have buffalo on display, just outside the doors when you arrive in a western town 🙂

“For years, refuge crews have been relying on irrigation, seeding and prescribed fires to revive short-grass prairie where previous Army owners had planted crested wheat. the bison herd that started with fewer than 20 animals a decade ago had grown to 76 in 2015, according to federal records. Bison eat up to 50 pounds of grass a days”

The human species, the so called “higher” level of intelligence – now over crowding the planet – needs to put a cork in our insufferable need to duplicate ourselves, the damage is too great, honestly, given our size and impact – before its too late for the rest of the planet to adjust to our follies (Fu*k Ups)

“Tick tock: Biologists show wildlife loss and climate change can synergistically increase tick abundance and the risk of tick-borne disease”

Summary:
“Around the world, ticks are one of the most important vectors of zoonotic diseases — animal diseases communicable to humans — and they’re everywhere. New research suggests that the abundance of ticks that carry certain fevers are likely to rise in the future, thanks to a combination of wildlife loss and climate change.”

http://wdfw.wa.gov/ais/salmo_salar/
Commercial fishermen might be able to claim some losses from the hassle of having Atlantics in their gear, but they’ll have to show they could not sell them for more than the cost of the hassle. Not wanting to sell them does not show that. Other damages may not be that great. The LOE piece failed to mention any up side to the fish farms. It’s only about 40 million per year, but it’s not nothing. Still, the escapes are bad publicity for an industry I’m not fond of, and perhaps this will bring tighter restrictions.

Hurricanes are natural phenomena that are what they are. Animals have dealt with them for millennia. Humans have an anthropocentric view of their own world, but animals live in a different world. What’s that expression? Seabirds, for example, are sensitive to changes in air pressure and move. Migrating birds somehow find the eye of the storm where it is less windy.

Sure, there will be some losses, but weather cannot be changed. Losses from human behavior can be changed/mitagated, and compound the difficult situations for animals’ survival. A bird dead on the tarmac pales in comparison to those destroyed on runways for flights, and when habitat is taken away for expansion of airports, etc.

If an area is damaged from a hurricane, sea grasses, etc., before humans took so much habitat for themselves, animals could move to a new location until the damaged area recovered. Not so today.

And why can we not see tbe writing on the wall
Wild animals need a reprieve
No hunting
No stress
Protected parks
Connected corridors
I know Rork will hate this
But one of the most terrible sights to me is that of migrating birds stopping at areas where they are shot from the skies
I’ve seen them exhausted trying to hide or find refuge in shallower waters as the hunters blast into the sky
I’ve also counted hundreds of dead or dying birds on the beach after hunting season
I posted a link here one time of images
Its mind numbing to think that at every step of their journey they are hunted
Between hunting, lack of havitat, and now dwindling marine species to eat it’s no wonder they fall from tne skies in some coastal areas ..,
What will take for us to realize old traditions are not sustainable or fair anymore, or smart
The cumulative impacts that human stressors create are unbearable

To think that 40 percent of world animals have vanished is heartbreaking and mystifyingly stupid

Killing bowhead whales that are 200 years old because it’s a tradition falls into the same category
Shortsighted and wrong
New traditions are created all the time

As for public trust rescurces
Adaptive management strategies should be applied that take into account the tremendously destructive consequences of thav our now invasive species has on al other life forms

I’ll take a late bite.
We have a bumper crop of greenwing teal this year, and also some of the less-common geese, so limits and seasons were opened up. I don’t hunt waterfowl, and the by-kill is regrettable, but the duck people have applied pressure and done some good in MI and Canada. Once rare birds are more common. I don’t see “unsustainable” for the species hunted in N America. I really like the trumpeter swan resurgence. I’d like more preserves for birds. So did Aldo. Works like magic for commercial fishing too.

Several organizations are joining to sue a government agency that kills millions of animals each year.

“Their official complaint is that Wildlife Services violates the National Environmental Policy Act, which states that “all federal agencies are to prepare detailed statements assessing the environmental impact of and alternatives to major federal actions significantly affecting the environment.””

It’s really only part of the equation – to conserve wildlife there needs to be protection too. Just promoting the killing side of it obviously is not going to help, or letting any goof with a gun call themselves a hunter and conservationist! How conservation is going to be achieved is rather vague in the ‘bullet’ points. All we can say now is that it keeps the public lands from development only.

It was a poor decision to reverse the ruling on lead bullets in the environment too.

Also, I don’t know what Zinke’s new ruling about expansion of hunting and fishing on the public lands means for the National Parks. The National Parks were mentioned in the article I read.

I can see Yellowstone becoming like the story we read about Glacier, the wildlife either killed off or driven out, in favor of a tacky resort-type atmosphere for tourists. National parks are becoming overwhelmed by obnoxious, loud and overbearing visitors. As it is, so-called ‘hunters’ lurk around the borders.

I said after Blaze had been destroyed because of the whims of a person who decided the rules didn’t apply to him that I would have to seriously consider ever spending money to contribute to this kind of ‘management’, and now I am all done for good.

Yeah, except when a bull gets into a porcelain shop, he probably doesn’t want to be there, just wants to get out, and the damage he does isn’t done intentionally or maliciously. I don’t think we can say the same thing for Trump. I hope the enviros and tribes are lining up their lawsuits. Yes, it does indeed feel like four years of damage.

Excerpt: “Conservation groups, aiming to end California’s dwindling fur trade, filed a lawsuit Wednesday that would force state wildlife authorities to raise license fees to levels required by law to cover the full costs of regulating the trapping, killing and skinning of wild animals.”

I know!!! But I will continue to post this documentary, again and again for those just tuning in to TWN. Dated but well worth the watch if you care about the other, living beings, we share the planet with.

Excerpt: “Secretary Zinke is trying desperately to create a distraction from his proposal to dramatically reduce the size of America’s national monuments, which would be the largest elimination of protections for wildlife habitat in U.S. history,” said a former Interior official.

I hate the sportspeople calling for more access when that really just means easier access to places we can already enjoy – it’s more roads they want. Exactly the opposite of what I want.
That we can already hunt federal lands is nearly pants-on-fire. Only a third of the national park system lands permit hunting. I haven’t seen ungulates destroying these places but I’m not that expert. It would be my only concern perhaps – but park managers surely know if that’s a big problem.

I have heard it suggested that Bears Ears will be the next Standing Rock.

“Utah quietly tells feds: Trim Bears Ears monument by 90 percent”

Excerpt:
“The state’s vision, shared with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, is to shrink Bears Ears to one-tenth its current 1.35 million acres, scaling the southeastern Utah monument down to about 120,000 acres surrounding Mule and Arch canyons west of Blanding, according to maps and other documents prepared by Gov. Gary Herbert’s office and obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through records requests.”

The state’s plan would “carve out archaeologically rich Cedar Mesa and Elk Ridge and other key features…
Thousands of ancient Native American sites are embedded in the canyon-cleaved landscape spanning Cedar Mesa, Grand Gulch, White Canyon, Dark Canyon and Elk Ridge — so many that their full extent will probably never be known.”

Yes. No moral compass. An unprincipled poser. A complete tool of the powers he serves. He’s occupying that coveted position for no qualification other than Donald Jr. wanted a Westerner who’s enthusiastic about hunting and fishing.

Excerpt: “ALBUQUERQUE – An endangered Mexican gray wolf has been killed by federal employees after a Native American tribe requested the animal be removed from the wild in the wake of a string of cattle deaths near the Arizona-New Mexico border.”

In ‘the most expeditious way possible’? Nice. Good to know that protecting health of this especially endangered animal is the is the primary concern of F&W. It’s sad that ‘likely’ and ‘probable’ are now terms being used to get rid of them, which means they are not confirmed kills.

I don’t even know why F&W tries to justify themselves, it’s a waste of effort. I don’t know that after so many times, anyone really believes their PR.

Excerpt: “The Interior Department is treating its employees to an unconventional addition to its cafeteria — “Big Buck Hunter Pro.”

“The department announced the cafeteria’s temporary new addition Tuesday, saying it is part of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s “latest initiative to reemphasize hunting and fishing” at the department.

“”Having the ‘Big Buck Hunter Pro’ arcade game will get many employees involved in sportmen’s season, in turn furthering the department’s mission of wildlife and habitat conservation,” the statement reads.”

Encouraging “target practice” when many species of animals are at historically low levels (and kept there) is not a good message to be sending by the Interior leadership. Talk about setting the tone! This man is a gremlin.

Ha! I identified them all correctly, and we don’t even have wolves where I live! We do have coyotes, and coywolves though. The fine-boned face and fur color and more delicate build are the coyotes. Even the wolf pups you can see the more powerfully boned jaw and stockier build, so I was glad to see photos of wolf pups interspersed. The coyote has a very sweet facial expression too – and larger ears, I think, and a bushier tail? But the wolf pups seemed to have larger ears and bushy tails too.

I did see what I thought was a coyote in the wild with dark, almost black fur one day – maybe it was a coywolf?

“PLEASE ACT: Deadline, September 25. Customs and Border Protection has opened a PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD regarding their plans for 28 miles of levee-border wall in Hidalgo County and 32 miles of border wall in Starr County. Santa Ana NWR, the National Butterfly Center, and La Lomita Mission would be in the no-man’s land behind the wall, while Roma, Rio Grande City, and La Grulla would face greater flood risks with bollard border walls in the floodplain. Sample email in the link!”

BBC Executives were reportedly ‘thrilled by the huge audiences watching the programme’, especially as ‘more than 2 million of the 12 million total weekly UK audience are in the prized 16-34 age range, meaning the programme has attracted more young adult viewers than The X Factor’.

Martin Hughes-Games:

The justification, say the programme makers, is that if people (the audience) become interested in the natural world they will start to care about the natural world, and will be more likely to want to get involved in trying to conserve it. Unfortunately the scientific evidence shows this is nonsense.

For instance, the World Wide Fund for Nature and Zoological Society of London’s authoritative 2016 Living Planet Report has concluded that between 1970 and 2012 there was a 58% decline of vertebrate population abundance worldwide. This encompasses the period in which Attenborough’s outstanding natural history series have been broadcast (starting with Life on Earth in 1979). The prime factor in this destruction is humankind’s insatiable need for space – destroying and degrading habitat at an appalling rate – coupled with species over-exploitation, pollution, invasive species, climate change and rampant poaching.

When I sampled opinion amongst long-standing environmentalists, I found almost universal agreement: Hughes-Games essentially has it right. Few doubt that the overall effect of decades of nature broadcasting on conservation has been positive but their view is that the nature spectaculars are now more of a hindrance than a help.

‘An “ooh” film is about pandas or koala bears, and it shows how they spend their whole lives cuddling their young without the interference of social workers. An “aah” film makes you gasp with wonder. It describes how the peculiar fly orchid is pollinated by just one species of insect – and shows you the process from inside the flower. The “yuck” film shows in sticky detail the slimy sex-life of the large yellow slug Limax pseudoflavus, and it lasts for half an hour. The “click” film is the slimy sex-life of Limax pseudoflavus part 2, including a treatise on the need to conserve the species in Stow-on the-Wold: the click is everyone turning off their televisions’.

“They are pushing back at something which has plagued conservationists for centuries — shifting baseline syndrome — where each generation’s perceptions of what is possible are shaped by what they grew up with.

“Overfishing may eat away at fish stocks, or even drive species extinct,” explains Jon Mooallem in “Wild Ones,” his book on the topic. “But when the next generation of scientists start their careers, they don’t see the oceans as depleted; that depleted condition becomes their baseline, against which they’ll measure any subsequent losses in their lifetimes.”

Much of the time, baselines are shifting in the direction of a denuded, lesser nature — more extinctions, more endangered species”

A hunter from Texas shot this rhino in 2010 on a game farm in Northern Cape, South Africa—with a tranquilizer dart. The sedated rhino, blindfolded to keep his eyes moist, later got a checkup from a veterinarian. Such hunts offer the thrill of the chase without the kill. A rule change in 2012 generally allows only veterinarians to fire tranquilizer darts; hunters can shoot darts containing vitamins.

++++

next step would be to travel to Africa to shoot vitamin darts in rhino / lion / elephant’s etc rubber doll imitation, imo

Excerpt: “A POLITICO review of dozens of résumés from political appointees to USDA shows the agency has been stocked with Trump campaign staff and volunteers who in many cases demonstrated little to no experience with federal policy, let alone deep roots in agriculture. But of the 42 résumés POLITICO reviewed, 22 cited Trump campaign experience. And based on their résumés, some of those appointees appear to lack credentials, such as a college degree, required to qualify for higher government salaries.”

The hires also include a country club cabana attendant and the owner of a scented candle company. Posting this mainly because Forest Svc. is a USDA agency.

The “dumbing down” of America pretty much began back in the late 70’s (re: education) and now, with the current administration, those perhaps “dumbed down” individuals, are being appointed to? And favored by?

Would you mistake this companion husky for a *coyote*?!? No doubt the so-called hunter would have loved to say he thought the dog was a wolf…but…this happened in New Jersey. The dog was also wearing a collar with leash attached!

Sickening
I’ll never forget the wretched image of a wolf strapped to a vehicle roof
It had been trapped and bludgeoned but it was not dead
It woke on top of the vehicle bloody dying and terrified
It was howling in fear and pain as the vehicle was driving
A horror show
Wtf
How is trophy hunting legal?

Outdoor recreation (hiking, picnicking, etc.) was not very popular a couple of decades ago in Israel but with the increase of humans in wolf habitat, habituated/food conditioning, there are bound to be problems.

“As in other countries there is interbreeding with feral dogs which adds an element of uncertainty”

Today is National Hunting & Fishing Day, a government-backed observance that aims to prop up dwindling hunter numbers by (in part) recruiting kids and women. Scroll though the associated FB page here for illustrations of this: https://www.facebook.com/nhfday/

And from the Safari Club: “Would you hunt grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone Area if Idaho, Montana, and/or Wyoming established regulated bear harvests?” Check out the answers…filled with misinformation. Oh, and the snarling griz photo is good, too. https://www.facebook.com/safariclubintl/posts/747197025460748

Best to research and recognize this mostly “white boys club” (SCI) for what it truly is – trophy hunters – killing off the best of wildlife AND endangered species, while at the same time, claiming to be “conservationists”

50,000 is the membership in SCI and IMHO, its sad,that these (mostly white guys, with a lot of disposable income) can’t do something decent & good with that extra income instead of lusting after heads to hang on their walls, in their 2nd or 3rd homes….

A very interesting article and timely re all the fed vs state lands rough water. I have always (back when I worked for the state) scratched my head about “USFS do the trees and we do the animals”, answer to the why question on this subject. Appears to be one of those lines someone said one day way back when and it stuck, rather lacking in legal footing. There is a lot of resouce policy in the file drawers based on the assumption: States do animals; Feds to trees. If this turns into a movement though I fear would be kicking the sleeping dog. I like these mind challenges.

“I think [my father] just had a strong belief, as a rancher, that prairie dogs were part of the ecosystem and a keystone species on top of that, which meant that a lot of native animals and birds relied on the prairie dog for food and shelter,” says Cathy Lucas of her father, Larry Haverfield, who died in 2014.

“He did rotation grazing and was a big believer in that, and he believed prairie dogs helped with that and made the grass more nutritious, aerated the soil, and rain would percolate in the burrows of the prairie dogs, all things that he thought contributed to successful ranching.”

Excerpt: “Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Monday 30 percent of his agency’s employees are “not loyal” to him or President Trump and he is developing a plan to overhaul the department.

“‘I got 30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag,’ Zinke said in remarks to the National Petroleum Council, a federal advisory panel. He compared his running of the agency to a pirate ship that seizes “a prized ship at sea and only the captain and the first mate row over” to complete the mission.”

Excerpt: “A Democratic congressman is calling for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to apologize for comments indicating that nearly one-third of employees at his department are not loyal to him and President Donald Trump.

“Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona says Zinke should ‘apologize to the public servants he is supposed to be leading.’”

Excerpt: “It is such a shame to even have to file this lawsuit, as clearly Congress never intended to give the authority to the federal government to create a massive unprecedented permitting scheme for factory fish farms in federal waters.”

I was reading one of my bird websites when I came across this, and thought it might be of interest. I had wondered if certain species will always need protections long-term, and not the ‘get-them-off-the-list-ASAP and what a success’ kind of thinking:

Ecoanxiety is an emerging condition. Named in 2011, the American Psychological Association recently described it as the dread and helplessness that come with “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations.”

… even if nothing about our energy infrastructure or transportation system changed—and even if people kept eating chicken and pork and eggs and cheese—this one dietary change could achieve somewhere between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed to meet the target.

Not that I find Fox News a particularly reliable source, but they are reporting an incident in Greece involving wolves eating a human. So, does one believe the autopsy report and reported circumstances of the events?

People in this country have had some nasty encounters with livestock guard dogs (in western states) She did claim in the phone call to her brother, that she was being attacked by dogs. A retired professor, a frequent visitor to the area, she probably knew the difference between a dog and a wolf.

“These people are not in social media, they are never in contact with people with a different mentality, they will never realize what they are doing, and there is absolutely no control over their actions. Offering sterilization for “pet dogs” living in such conditions, in rural Greece might be the only solution – because education will take decades, and we can’t afford it. Until then, every time we pass by a garbage bin, we will be approaching and listening carefully, because wining (or meowing) from the inside of them is more common than you can possibly imagine”

First case: So, on one regional Internet portal the case when the demobilized soldier, coming back from the army, was attacked by gray predators was described, and punishment of him was heard by his mother with whom he before the attack spoke on the mobile phone and hasn’t switched it off. According to the grapevine stories of locals, from him there were only boots left, all the rest had been eaten.

Second case: Not any less heart-breaking case is repeatedly described in various mass media articles. On the route Kirov-Syktyvkar the wolf pack has attacked a young family who waited for the bus. Parents have managed to lift the three year old daughter on the stop’s roof. As a result she managed to escape, however before her eyes wolves have torn both of her parents to pieces.

Rumours about similar incidents in a good few of regions were handed down, acquiring embellished details. Each of such facts had to be investigated and checked for reliability. As a result of checks any of the described cases wasn’t confirmed.

So, the demobilized soldier really has been found dead, however examination has shown that he has died from overcooling, and simply speaking, has frozen after having been celebrating his demobilization. He had gone at night by foot to the native village. The regional state inspector and the chairman of society of hunters who has left on inspection of the scene have explained that the corpse wassn’t touched by predators, wolf traces have not been found.

In that area where parents of the three year old girl have died – by hearsay – the regional ranger has visited police, hospital, a morgue and road service. It has appeared, such case isn’t recorded anywhere, however all unanimously assured that it has occurred in the neighboring area. It was necessary to come out for the inspector to the “local scene” and to interrogate there all those who could have any information on this fact. Result — the same assurances that the tragedy has really happened, but not at them, but in the area from where the the inspector has arrived.

…the first time I (the author of the article) happened to hear the story about the girl and her parents was in 1996 when I was a student. Fortunately, even then it was only hearsay …

Mexican wolf plan:http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6358/1341
is the abstract to what amounts mostly to a interview with Mike Phillips (Turner Endangered Species Fund wolf expert, and one of 9 scientists the FWS got to be on their panel) and some other key Mexican wolf people. “Critics pan wolf plan”. I’m at work and can’t tell if the full text is free – the abstract is pretty worthless. The draft plan is almost nothing like the recommendations given.
“They’ve given the states everything they wanted.” might be the short Phillips quote worth giving.

“Whether you’re vegan or meat eater, this big-game hunting doc will make you squirm”

Excerpt: “According to Schwarz, “Trophy” is neither pro- nor anti-hunting. Rather, he says, it’s about something larger: “our relationship to animals, and how that is shifting,” in directions from which there might be no turning back. The mantra of the hardcore anti-hunting movement — keep the wild wild — is a dangerous position, he argues…

“Schwarz offers up a better mantra: If it pays, it stays. In other words, when there are economic incentives to keep animals alive — even if it’s for the purpose of killing them, as in the case of farm-raised lions, bred for sport hunting — perhaps even hunters can be called, perversely, conservationists.”

Excerpt: “Every spring, Fur-Ever Wild welcomes multiple litters of wolf puppies born at the facility,” the complaint states. “The facility offers $20 ‘pet-n-plays’ with the wolf puppies while they are young. It integrates the puppies with the adult packs in the fall when the wolves are no longer young enough for visitor interactions.”

“The animal advocates claim Fur-Ever then kills the gray wolves in the winter after the puppies grow older.”

This is mind-blowing…time lapse filmed over 9 months. How anyone can look at the amazing life on this amazing planet and not feel awe and humility is beyond me…or fail to feel panic at its potential/impending loss.

“Discover the astounding, pulsing life of a seemingly immobile coral reef”

At least two MT newspapers–Billings Gazette and Missoulian–took the Forest Svc. to task for trying to censor and then breaking ties with the Bolle Center over the report, “Fish and Wildlife Management on Federal Lands: Debunking State Supremacy.”

What’s next in the world of animal exploitation? “Selfie Safaris.”
“Special Report: The Amazon Is the New Frontier for Deadly Wildlife Tourism
An exclusive National Geographic investigation reveals widespread animal suffering in Amazonian port towns, fueled by ‘selfie safaris.'”

Excerpt: “Conservation and animal welfare groups agree that when an activity involving wildlife crosses the line from observation to interaction, it’s bad for the animals.”

Do at least look at the photos. The opening pic of the surrounded dolphin is horrifying.

“We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be –the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer – which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”
― Farley Mowat, “Never Cry Wolf”

Checking out the various webcams at Yellowstone and the one at Mammoth Hot Springs /Parade Grounds has a collection of elk hanging out by the parking area. The webcam refreshes every minute and it was interesting to watch people getting too close to these elk.

Then one guy stepped right out near a cow elk to take a picture. The webcam has not refreshed since that happened so I have wonder if he got his but run over by the cow or the big bull just a few yards away and staff froze the camera. Some people are just brainless.

…the speed of a rattlesnake’s strike at the midpoint of the strike was determined. It proved to be not nearly so fast as popularly supposed – far from the “fastest thing in nature” as has been stated. An adult prairie rattlesnake (C.v. viridis), in twenty separate tests, struck with an average speed of 8.12 feet per second. The variation was from 5.2 to 11.6 feet per second. There was some correlation of speed with temperature, although it was not high. These speeds are slower than those of a man striking with his fist.

Good to know, still not taking any chances. We were rattled at last month while taking a walk on our road…got caught after dark, heard the rattle just feet from our driveway. The little booger was coiled up at the edge of the road sucking up the last warmth of the day. I love and respect snakes but there’s a primal response to hearing that rattle–goosebumps every time!

“The election of President Donald Trump has made a lot of people feel very uncomfortable with the fact that he alone can authorise the use of nuclear weapons,” she told reporters in Geneva, adding that “there are no right hands for nuclear weapons”.

“Over the last 15 years, we have watched this disease insidiously spread across the country,” said Capt. Carter Hendrix with the WFF Law Enforcement Section. “In fact, it has spread much faster than it naturally should have. This is due largely to human transportation across state lines of infected, harvested animal parts or live animals.”

Yeah, that guys a professional deer breeder, he knew EXACTLY what he was doing and the implications of CWD possibly being introduced here. Fortunately others around him did too.

CAN I KILL A MOTHER BEAR?!? Six days of slaughter begins today in eight New Jersey counties. Because hunting is “fair chase” (note sarcasm), bears can be lured to and killed at baited sites. Even more despicable? From the NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife FAQs: “Q) Can I shoot a female if it is with cubs? A) Yes, you are encouraged to shoot the first black bear that presents you with a safe shot that will provide a quick clean kill. This is a management hunt and all year classes, male and female black bears are legal to harvest.”

Louise & Ida…it boggles the mind. And these people walk among us. I also note the way they know the sex of the bear, but rather than use the pronoun “she,” use “it”: “Can I shoot a female if it is with cubs?”–reinforcing the idea that animals are things, commodities, merely renewable resources at our disposal, rather than sentient individuals with their own wants, needs, and interests (many of which are the same as ours). Speciesism sucks.

Deeply ingrained in our dominant society is the supremacy of humankind, whether through religion or just our own self-centeredness. That’s the insistence upon using ‘it’ when referring to animals. When you know the sex of an animal, it’s ‘he’ or ‘she’, as you note.

It almost sounds as if this person wants to do this, and leave cubs without their mother to care for them, or perhaps ‘it’ (don’t know if this person is male or female, and don’t care to find out) wants to kill all of them!

Whatever hunting was in days of old, based on necessity, etc – today’s version bears no resemblance too.

After what I read about in the Florida hunt, cub killing and very little hunting ‘ethics’, a complete spree where most of the bears were killed in a few days, and no respect, it seems people have no connection with hunting of old and just want to exercise their ‘right’ to kill, or worse, some perverse desire to kill something that is legal. It’s repulsive, and wildlife departments ought to set a better standard than ‘killing whatever bear first presents to you’, with no responsibility whatsoever!

I looked for information about black bear cub survival. It may not be that bad in places like NJ. When we want to reduce deer numbers, we target adult females. When we want to increase deer, we refrain, or our managers forbid it. Are bear that different? I’m not an expert mind you, and my question is real.
Maybe bear facts are irrelevant, or even contraindicated – they seem to be absent from people’s comments. It also seemed that the reduction in bear complaints and even sightings is greater than the reduction in bears last year – so hunters may be more likely to kill bears causing the most troubles (the opposite of what I’ve seen some emotional writers say elsewhere, but they were confirming their own bias with data – data they invent at least). I’ll note that if everyone was targeting just large males (common in MI) you’d likely complain about that too.

I fully agree the key thing is that people everywhere need to learn to live with bears better. No trash availability, more bear-proof houses, not to attract them with bird feeders or other things. I really like seeing them, and on occasion even get to observe them for more than a few seconds with binocs. Just tracking them and studying what they’ve been eating is fascinating. They are allot more valuable than the fur and meat, if you’ve got eyes and curiosity. I might feel less so if they were very abundant near my house.

This is why it is ludicrous and frankly, arrogant, to think that we humans can ‘manage’ wildlife by killing them of in the name of ‘population control’ or greedy trophy hunting. There’s no accounting for disease outbreaks over which humans have no control, and probably contribute to by habitat loss, contamination of the environment, and on and on. This happened in Uganda too:

Game farms, artificial feeding… and I’ll throw in a little possible kicker: attempting to maintain that “sweet spot” in the sigmoid growth curve for the explicit purpose of surplus harvest. Perhaps more is not better. Perhaps in “nature’s wisdom” periods of boom and bust are better. We continually hear from some how man can manage wildlife better than, well, nature.

Here in MN, the DNR is feverishly working to keep CWD out of the state. Wisconsin has all but capitulated to CWD.
Also, as the MN deer population has increased after the winters of 12/13 and 13/14 (no, the wolves did not kill them all) the specter of brain worm and liver flukes infecting an already staggering moose population (another symptom of too many deer are more wolves, which will undoubtedly adversely affect the moose population), reinforces more is not better. The operative question becomes, is human husbandry of wildlife wise?

I hope wildlife departments step up take a more proactive role in preventing the spread of this. That means NO to game farms, no wishy-washy ‘we don’t know enough about it yet to make a decision’).

In nature there is boom and bust – but we’ve mucked things up so badly by habitat taking and human activities that I don’t think animal populations can overcome natural threats anymore, on top of the overwhelming threat humans pose.

That was torture to read, and is pretty slanted about human risks, but did at least point to a fairly good summary of some of the science, but failed to say any of what was reported there.http://www.virology.ws/2015/03/11/is-chronic-wasting-disease-a-threat-to-humans/
Instead we get a named source that does not say what we expect about the risk, and bunch of unnamed sources, and no peer-reviewed research. The author claims to be a trained journalist.

Near me, knocking deer down is essential. I’ve seen overpopulation. Emaciated deer, land being destroyed, some species near extinction, farmers becoming outlaws. It is hardly ludicrous to try and replace the predators in keeping deer numbers in check, unless and until we can get a ton of predators.

rork,
Great response. I put article up for discussion, and as usual, your comment is educated and to the point. My take on article was not so much the possible speed to humans, but the inevitable spread among wildlife, and as your article implies, the possible spread to livestock (forget about brucellosis, eh) or one population serving as a prion reservoir for the other.

April of one of those tough winters up here, had a drooling deer < one year old buck approach my 95 lb GS. No fear, just wandered aimlessly for days. I called the DNR about the behavior, and even though CWD has not been found up here, the DNR sent two agents up the following day.

Deer was found where it had been bedded down the evening before, already dead. Field necropsy was immediately performed…I believe it was the retropharyngeal lymph nodes. Agent was satisfied it was not CWD, but probably starvation. Nodes were sent in for proper testing and proved negative for CWD.

As an aside, when she opened the young deers throat, as she was probing for the nodes, she exposed a number of bot fly larva. Looked like miniature aliens from said movie. Interesting life cycle, that doesn't really seem to hurt the deer…Mother Nature at times works in bizarre ways.

I should have added that keeping ungulate population densities very high by design is bad, and concentrating them on artificial foods is crazy. If you don’t have good winter habitat, work on making better and more winter habitat. It’s what we need in northern MI too. In southern MI there’s no such problems, and they breed like rabbits.

The article was somewhat good on those points.
The sad part is that our game managers manage only partly for wildlife or ecosystem health, and sadly feel they need to keep a fairly sharp eye on the economic health of their departments, as well as the state’s. I wish there was not such huge money swirling around this. Overpopulation to satisfy hunters and people who profit from them has damaged our forests, reduced favored deer food plants, and made insects relying on those plants in terrible trouble (like lupine). And it’s shooting yourself in the foot – the landscape’s carrying capacity for deer was damaged, and will take decades of low densities to repair (which we likely will not do very well).
I could use more pointers or information about economic impacts of CWD in places like wyoming, colorado, wisconsin. I’d think tourism would suffer, and wonder what happens to property values. People here spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on land and dwellings whose primary draw is deer hunting. My father-in-law’s 80 up north is worth allot, but just how much it is worth depends on deer densities, quality of buck antlers, and deer disease prevalence. Hunting rabbits, squirrels, grouse, ducks, pheasants, geese, hardly matter anymore.
I scored on public land Oct 1, first time ever on opening day for me. It’s what’s for dinner.

“He also would like to know what effect trophy hunting might have on these social structures. “What happens when a male is removed,” he wonders. “Is there social chaos? Is there quick turnover to maintain those social systems and relationships that are in place? We don’t know.”

Wildlife report: I was out walking today, and came to a spot in woodland where I heard a lot of bird activity. Nearby, something fell out of the trees into the leaf litter below, what looked to be a little struggle between two small creatures. A mouse or chipmunk? It turned out to be two tiny birds – one was a ruby-crowned kinglet who landed on a branch next to me, and the other flew away right in front of me. 🙂

We just added ruby-crowned kinglet to the 50 birds we’ve seen at our new home since June 1. And his little crown was showing! The coolest thing happened just the other day–a canyon wren climbed around on the stucco on our little upper-story porch while my husband was sitting out there. Must’ve flown over from Mesa Verde.

We’ve got the same concerns, though not wth a salmon culture, at the headwaters of the BWCA, where the Chilean company Antofagasta wants to put in a copper, nickel mining complex. These things are ecological disasters waiting to occur in aquatic ecosystems.

On another note, and not just as an excuse for writing something about wolves, the article provided by JEFF E also exposes of the hypocrisy of some of Alaska’s fish and game management. For years we have read how the culling of wolves in areas of Alaska’s interior is done to help the subsistence hunters. Yet, here we have an example of a potential mining operation that could put into peril the way of life of thousands of people, not to mention an ecological treasure.

What is stunning is considering what the historical salmon runs were. all down the west coast and before that the east coast. Salmon by the millions +, year after year in virtually every river, stream. and creek.
BUT try to find any historical accounts of those salmon runs. Few and far between is what you will find and most just a passing mention. It is, in light of that history, even more disheartening, when in the name of some one making a buck,these last “small” salmon runs are assaulted.

Here’s an old article from 2015 (Just look at that beautiful wetlands!). This has been going on for years, too long. It appears that even the Washington Post is a little sympathetic to a gold mine by the tone of the article then, referring to this valuable place as ‘desolate, empty, only one of its treasures allowed to be ‘taken’ to market, etc.) The EPA had considered using a rare provision of the Clean Water Act to stop the mine, but Pebble filed a lawsuit, and politicians from the State of Alaska fought it, as well as many Republicans. For whatever reason, the then EPA did not veto the project, whether they were enjoined or just weak.

Keeping Americans addicted to their meat: Game farmed deer & elk sandwiches coming to Arby’s. Elk sandwiches available in CO, MT, & WY. The deer are farmed in New Zealand for a value-added carbon footprint.

“The Trump administration, urged on by well-funded ideologues and fossil fuel interests, is engaged in an unprecedented effort to destroy our country’s system of public lands. This effort is not about our shared national interest, and if left unchecked it will eventually reach your backyard.” ~Raul Grijalva

“Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, slammed new efforts to overhaul the Antiquities Act as a “hastily rushed mess” as the panel prepares to mark up the bill this afternoon.”

Here’s what the unqualified, unprincipled poser running Interior is up to when he’s not hobnobbing with petroleum industry execs and making plans to reduce and plunder our precious public lands and wildlife habitat: flying a flag to announce his presence in the building (like the Queen of England) and handing out commemorative coins with his name on them.

‘Pomp’ is a well-known word, albeit rather archaic, meaning ‘splendid display or celebration; magnificent show or ceremony’. … As to ‘circumstance’, it’s currently used to mean ‘surroundings – of an action or a situation’ – the place where circumstantial evidence comes from, if you will”

Excerpt: …”The White House praised Myers and his company for its “highest grossing years, and its largest global web and mobile audience growth. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on the use of weather information.

“But critics worry about the wealthy businessman’s potential conflicts of interest, especially his support of a highly criticized bill that would have shifted taxpayer-funded National Weather Service data to for-profit companies. Companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel. …

“Opponents say that Myers, who has degrees in business and law, is unlike previous NOAA administrators who have prominent scientific backgrounds. For instance, President Obama’s NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan is a geologist and former NASA astronaut.”

I had to do a double-take to see if this was the NYT I was reading. Some scientists think wolves and dogs are the same species? They are, and most if not all scientists do classify them as the same species. They are classified as Canis and they can and have bred with wolves.

There are differences between wolves and dogs? Really. Humans have domesticated and made genetic changes by breeding for millennia, thousands of years, which would account for changes in personality, friendliness, domestication, bone and jaw structure, as well as many other human-desired traits, over and above what would have occurred in nature.

Apologies if this devastating story was already posted. But don’t forget–climate change is a Chinese hoax.

“Thousands of tiny baby Adélie penguin starve to death as changing weather forces parents to travel for food:
Only two chicks survived – with the rest starving as their parents were forced to trudge across Antarctica to eat”

I keep wondering if these government agencies are just ignorant or for some reason, perhaps political? Are over looking the obvious, by allowing the continued hunting/prosecution of predators, by a select few?

Predators that could possibly keep in check, the spread of CWD and a host of other diseases cropping up, in what is becoming mismanagement of ungulates?

Part 1 of my long stuff:
Domestic cats did get mad cow, and they get their own version of it too (FSE). Dogs zero. We know of no prion diseases in canines or pigs at all (so far). This is still being studied, but one likely factor is that some species have PRP proteins that are inherently hard to miss-fold. Another possibility people still hedge about is that they have other proteins that make their PRP’s hard to missfold. Bear and Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) do not have the canine version that folks think might protect canine, so a bit more worry about them eating deer/elk with CWD. Also, even if two species both have fairly easy-to-miss-fold PRPs, That does not mean one can convert the other – the two ways of miss-folding may not be similar enough. There are quite a few papers about this. You’ll need to work a bit to acquire the needed jargon though.

Part 2:
PS: It is famous that there is a rare human variant of the PRP gene that makes you essentially immune to vCJD (mad cow) and kuru (the all-human version). It’s from New Guinea, where cannibalism was more popular. Similarly folks speculate that carnivores and scavengers may have had mutant PRP genes be selected for by prion diseases being present in their prey. Cats is the oddball – mice and some other rodents do get such diseases, but whether it transfers I don’t know. I have much to learn, that is certain.
(PS: I could say “PRNP gene” and PrP protein to be more correct but don’t need to be formal here.)

Nancy,
My feeling is simply, the old adage of sometimes more of something is not necessarily a good thing. The eye rollers are already rolling eyes and submit the same thing can be said for wolves.

Deer are managed for highest sustainable yield, ideally, with harvest of surplus. I’ll venture to say deer densities are higher than ever before in the country, Great for deer hunters, but not necessarily great for deer. Throw in game farms, crop damage, forest damage, deer/auto collisions, and spread of brain worm and liver flukes to moose, one of the variables in the spread of Lymes disease, and continue to sustain a higher wolf population, and the problems escalate.

The garden of eden never existed, but the garden of boom and bust did. Too much of a good thing is not necessarily good.

“The garden of eden never existed, but the garden of boom and bust did. Too much of a good thing is not necessarily good”

And sadly, to many who claim to represent “mankind” these days, aren’t going to notice or.. just choose to ignore (for a host of reasons like greed and simple ignorance) the negative effects/impacts on wildlife and the environment, until its too late to address them.

“Petition launched to recognize Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a country”

Excerpt:
“The Trash Isles imagines the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a pile of primarily plastic waste floating in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean – as an official country recognised by the United Nations.”

Southwest Colorado had a killing freeze at the end of spring–it killed all the buds for Gambel oak acorns and most berries, effectively wiping out wild food sources for black bears. When Mesa Verde Nat’l Park began having bear problems in the campground (a couple became habituated and were executed), they put out a call for volunteers to do daily patrols of the campground, educating campers about bear awareness. We answered the call and had a wonderful time making conditions safer for bears & campers and meeting nice people from all over the world. And Bear Patrol was effective–camp sites were kept scrupulously clean for the most part, and the bears moved on. For the few sites we reported where food/coolers were left out and unattended, those items were confiscated and fines were imposed. Kudos to Mesa Verde for taking this issue very seriously once they figured out what was happening.

“‘Hungry bear’ crisis leaves two people dead in Russia’s far east: Overfishing and fewer food sources making bears more aggressive, say officials, who have killed 83 on Sakhalin Island this year”

Excerpt: “Dogs may be social butterflies, but wolves are top dog when it comes to working together as a team. That’s because unlike dogs, wolves haven’t evolved to avoid conflict; instead, members of a pack “sort things out” as they forage together, according to a new study. The work calls into question a long-held assumption that domestication fostered more cooperative individuals.”

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3375/043.037.0206 is abstract. I can see the article but don’t know about others. It is a good read, mostly for background. It’s having hare be the main prey item, and lynx populations would be rather small. I wondered what densities might have been historically when caribou were the only ungulate, and might let lynx densities be higher.
I see an old NPS paper about feasibility of caribou restoration, from 1996. Pretty long. It concludes it would be hard, but assumes 1) wolves present, and 2) moose present.

https://archive.org/details/woodlandcaribour00coch is the caribou review. If you like Isle Royale, I can highly recommend it, cause it holds lots of facts and history besides stuff about caribou. Examples: Moose that stay closer to the campgrounds have better fawn survival. Much talk of the vegetation.

It may be true that it’s the pictures that are the biggest trophy.
I took a picture of the buck I shot recently, but I followed my recommended practice, which is that it is on site, and there are no people in the picture. Don’t make it be about you.

“Current understanding of animal welfare currently excludes fish, even though fish feel pain”

Excerpt: “A leading expert in fish behaviour argues that our fundamental understanding and assessment of animal welfare must be changed to consider fish, or risk continued catastrophic impact on their welfare, in an article published today in Animal Sentience.”

Turns out their “…neurochemistry is so similar (to ours) that it’s scary.” Turns out this isn’t a bonus for fish…making them “a promising animal model for developing anti-depressants.” The article contains video showing a fish kept drunk and depressed, then administered an anti-depressant.

Cortical associational areas and connectivity seem to operate in efficient ways, which may obviate any presumption that consciousness resides in any area exclusive to one taxon of neuron-possessing organism over another.
More recent functional imaging studies may add to the recognition that awareness, the most accurate synonym of consciousness, however fleeting the sensory input may be, occurs (is mediated) in brain areas shhared by more organisms than just mammals or vertebrates.
The phenomenon is useful for molluscs, however sessile, and insects.
There are neural indicators that fruit flies, for instance, with neural nuclei in heads almost as tiny as the periods in these sentencees, experience dreaming, a consolidation reiterating recent experience with that of the individual past.

The nonlocal ganglia of octopi, have not in the least precluded their ability to learn, have curiosity, exhibit emotion.
We must beware of any arrogation whatsoever of any specific cognitive trait to ourselves alone.

I don’t know why these people are sentenced to community service at wildlife refuges – can they be trusted, and I would wonder that their behavior is ingrained and not much chance of it turning their thinking around.

On this one I’m inclined to agree. The entry fees and passes are ridiculously cheap, and if people love their parks, they should support them. And with the amount of visitors that plow through them every year, it could be used upkeep, maintenance, green busses and trash removal would be great – instead of the constant threat of privatizing.

If the parks are privatized, then fees will really go up, and the Parks will lose their natural character. We can’t have it both ways; and for people to complain about it is very frustrating. The Parks are constantly in need of funds and repairs, and to say that the funds need to come from government is really a cop-out.

I guess after tourist season and another Bundy-type takeover, we can ask FEMA.

that would be a start.
but it was just announced today that the bears ear monument is going to be significantly reduced in size so I would not hold my breath on any fee increase for extraction industries. Probably just the opposite in fact

Making it (and everything else) a partisan fight only keeps things at a standstill. Meanwhile, the Parks need money. If one side doesn’t want to pay raised fees, and the other wants to cut funds, then those of us who love it will step up and pay more. Very simple. As you say, as long as the money stays for the Parks.

OK, they are likely correct about lyme disease. The rest was incoherent.
5-fold increase in deer accidents on opening day is 1) not referenced, 2) does not say compared to what, 3) does not account for a ton of hunters driving to hunt in the dark, and 4) does not have a point, unless it’s “we should not hunt deer because it causes crashes on the opener”. We could drive less that day.
That most hunters like shooting bigger vs smaller bucks does not show they do not shoot females. Intelligent QDM managers know they must kill MORE females than in traditional management (to make room for more males).
Aren’t they trying to argue that stopping the hunting of deer is the way to reduce deer densities, and just not realizing it?

BTW: Some commenters there actually do believe that halting deer hunting will lower deer densities. Their math has magical properties, one goes like this I think: As deer density increases, fawn recruitment (and birth rate) decreases, thus deer densities go down. This might actually be true if you have so many deer for so long that they destroy the land – the remaining wasteland can’t support as many deer.

(202) 208-7351
This is the office of Secretary of Interior
You can make a comment here if desired
I found it inspiring to learn that I was just one of many voices calling in to object to zinke and his NRA safari club approach to wildlife on public lands.
If you too hate seeing Tbe interior and fish and wildlife sites turned into a propaganda spinning machine for hunting and trapping and then seeing those policies shoved down our throats, please consider taking a moment to call

If retaining some refuge for wildlife on public lands is not your thing
Maybe retaining monument size snd designations is
Preventing gas and oil extraction and mining is
Or objecting to using ones office to influencing some source contract awards to u qualified co tractors is

Consider calling please
Every day the Trump family and cabinet thugs normalize mayhem and corruption

Yeah, also have to ask – where was his damned bear spray?” Given the obvious “double speak” surrounding the death of this bear, with cubs.

“It is not unusual for an agency with concurrent jurisdiction to be asked to assume investigative responsibility for an incident when a member of a law enforcement agency with primary jurisdiction is involved,” said Sheriff Scott Steward in the release. “This maintains the integrity of the investigation and eliminates even the perception of impropriety.”

Would appear, even those in the position of authority (Fish & Game officials) can’t seem to relate at all to the tools (like bear spray) when it comes to the wildlife they are assigned to protect.

“Had the landowners been able to show that the trail had been used for at least five consecutive years only by those who’d received their permission, their claims of private control might have held.

That helps explain why Alex Sienkiewicz, the forest ranger overseeing the district that includes the Crazy Mountains, every year sends an email to his staff reminding them never to ask landowners’ permission to use trails that the government already considers public. “By asking permission,” he wrote in last year’s reminder, “one undermines the public access rights and plays into their lawyers’ trap of establishing a history of permissive access.”

The ranching business has enjoyed their nice setup because they raise animals for food – usually a top priority for humanity. If people don’t like this arrangement, stop eating it, or eat less of it. It will soon change. But we can’t play helplessness about it.

They are entirely mute on deer spreading brain worm and liver flukes to moose.
Also, we have four inches of snow on the ground, that wet heavy stuff that has since become a solid mass over everything, 3-5 more inches expected tonight, and the deer are already browsing growth leaders off of young pines. Thus the non-affectionate name of pine rat. With no real warming trend ( above freezing) in the near future, and December looming, what the MDHA is going to get is mass starvation.

Cheatgrass? On a hike yesterday the predominate ground cover seemed to be cheatgrass. How does that stuff populate such a large part of southern Idaho? Our political leaders want us to share public lands more and more with mining and business interests. If sharing means even more deterioration of our public lands we cannot afford to share with them.

And I have no doubt you did, Timz (given when I live Montana) but I’ve clicked on this news source link you provided (a few times over the past week or so) and it breaks up, very slow download and talk over local advertisement videos pop up.

Might be my painfully now, slow WiFi connection (although I thought my painfully slow DSL connection got replaced by a better way to connect – WiFi? a year agos) so wondering if anyone else on TWN had the same technical problems accessing this news link?

It seems that the cheaper palm oil is in everything nowadays, under the guise of being ‘sustainable’. With the world population expected to be nearly 10 billion by 2050, I don’t see how anything can be sustainable.

In a major scientific discovery, a team of researchers has announced that there appear to be three subspecies of the snow leopard. Until now, the elusive snow leopard, which inhabits a vast area of 1.6 million sq. km across multiple countries in Central and South Asia, was thought to be a single or “monotypic” species (Panthera uncia). Despite the enormous size of its global range, hunting and poaching have taken a serious toll on the animal’s population, which today, is estimated to be only 3,500 to about 7000 wild cats.

… Based on their analysis of the animal’s DNA, the researchers believe that the snow leopard underwent a genetic bottleneck approximately 8,000 years ago during what is called the Holocene Thermal Optimum, a period of time characterized by warmer temperatures, precipitation, and a tree-line shift to higher elevations on the Tibetan Plateau. This suggests that snow leopards may be particularly sensitive to climate change, and according to Dr. Jackson, such changes are also expected to have a pervasive impact on the pastoralists who share the same habitat over this vast area.

Ultimately, delineating or separating Panthera uncia into subspecies provides scientists with a better understanding of the animal’s evolution and ecology.

The 12 countries the comprise the snow leopard’s range – Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – have joined together to designate 20 protected landscapes by 2020 to each support at least 100 breeding snow leopards, as part of an international effort called the Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection Program (“GSLEP”).
+++

“This is a federal government report whose contents completely undercut their policies, completely undercut the statements made by senior members of the administration,” said Phil Duffy, the director of the Woods Hole Research Center. …

…“’I think this report is basically the most comprehensive climate science report in the world right now,’ said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers who is an expert on sea-level rise and served as one of the report’s lead authors.”

I been writing about this for years, not just on TWN. But the antagonists have been countering, no, its wolves. Well, it’s the pine rats. And, if one reads the entire article, the fate of the moose is in the hands of the MDHA because of, you guessed it, money.

So exactly how desperate IS the hunting industry (and its legislator lackeys) to bolster the falling number of hunters??? Putting a lethal weapon in the hands of a small child is simply insane from a safety standpoint…but teaching a child to kill another sentient being before he/she understands the import and gravity of taking a life is flat out immoral. Way to go, Wisconsin.

“Republicans push law that would let toddlers use high-powered hunting rifles”

Excerpt: “Absolute insanity that we’re talking about giving a kid a gun at any age so they experience the heritage of hunting.”

I completely agree that we need public education that guns don’t make the vast majority of people any safer. I hear too many people saying they feel safer, who don’t know that’s false. County by country comparison is not the perfect study. We don’t fund science about this subject in the US, but I and many others concerned with public health want epidemiologists all over the issue. It’s hard to study when your guns are unregistered.

We have laws essentially like this in MI. Two year olds have not been observed shooting rifles. Age limits exist for when you don’t need an adult right next to you though (arm’s length until 16). MI decided that on private property, the parents can decide, since any particular age is fairly arbitrary. Public land limit is 14. Over age 10 needs hunter safety class certifications. No super crazy things have happened. Amazing, eh? Rural families have their traditions about when you are ready. It’s 14 for rifles for us, 16 for bows, 12 for turkey with shotgun, if you are big enough to handle the kick. Nobody under 16 has asked to go yet, except one niece at 15, who shot the camp’s record buck that year.

When we are slaughtering and butchering lambs, chickens, rabbits, ducks, turkeys, we let the kids observe and help if they want, though they don’t do the killing (cause it takes skill and experience). We figure it’s part of our life and not a secret. We want them to see how we act doing these things, and that it is complicated. We let them collect chicken’s eggs and help rear the animals too. We show them how to fish and eat fish too.

To restate. The safety problem is theoretical (perhaps theatrical is better), not practical, sort of like trans bathroom issues. Precautions are in place. As for morality, that is personal – we could have laws saying your kid has to be vegan and cannot attend church until 15, but some of us like freedom.
I’m pro gun registration btw.

YES! Whether M-44s are used or not (the Feds claim the latter), “Today’s agreement is the latest step in ensuring the federal government and the state of Colorado follow the law and the best science in managing wildlife.” ~WildEarth Guardians

Also, Wildlife Services “will also not participate in, fund, or authorize the hunting or trapping of black bears or mountain lions to “study” the effects on ungulate populations. And Wildlife Services will not deploy or use traps or snares that violate Colorado Constitutional Amendment 14, pending the release of the new analysis.”

Excerpt: Elephants are “increasingly being pushed out of existing habitats by human behaviour. ‘There are forests being cut down, degraded, and also being fragmented by development like new roads and pipelines.’”

Excerpt: “Beyond his aversion to Mr. Obama’s legacy, Mr. Trump seems mainly interested in pleasing Senator Orrin Hatch and other members of the Utah congressional delegation. Their objections range from the narrowly commercial complaint that the Grand Staircase designation has blocked coal mining (ignoring a big increase in revenues from tourism) to a broader wish to put management of the public lands in the hands of local interests instead of what State Representative Mike Noel calls ‘the tree-huggers, the bird and bunny lovers and the rock lickers.'”

“Video game prompts charges of ‘eco-terrorism’ from oil pipeline advocates”

Excerpt: “The politics of a proposed oil pipeline across northern Minnesota have grown so contentious that even the release of a video game has stirred up controversy.

“Thunderbird Strike,” a new game developed by current Michigan State University professor and former Duluth-based Native American artist Elizabeth LaPenseé, allows players to symbolically destroy oil pipelines and other infrastructure. It was partly funded by a Minnesota state arts grant.”

Lastly, a book that I loved on the diversity and rare animals in Viet Nam. I truly enjoyed this book a few years ago. But it also made me want to cry at how much we humans have adversely affected the world’s ecosystems even in my lifetime. Seriously. Read this book.

Did anyone see this documentary on PBS about cheetahs? A conservationist follows a cheetah family who start out with 5 young and only 2 end up surviving. And it doesn’t end there I am sure. It shows just how difficult it is for wildlife to survive – disease, competition from other predators – without the added stress of arrogant trophy hunters and the so-called benefits of trophy hunting!

“In late October, he started to make good on his pledge, announcing that the largest offering of public lands for lease in the history of the Bureau of Land Management — 10.3 million acres — will be up for bid on Dec. 6”

Remember the Hitchcock movie the birds? I often think of it and how presumptuous it is for humans to believe they have the right to kill other beings for earning a living. If the tables were turned and animals resorted to exacting revenge on animal killers…

Rocky Mountain Wolf Project: “The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project aims to improve the public understanding of gray wolf behavior, ecology, and options for re-establishing the species in Colorado. The benchmark of our success: Wolves again roaming the snow-capped peaks, rim rock canyons, and primeval forests of Western Colorado.”

“I feel betrayed. Homo sapiens! Greedy pathetic fools with a genetic mania to destroy all the sanctuaries that feed their souls. Well, hell, I don’t give a damn if we’re blotted out. I don’t want to be a part of the human race when I see the pimps in government and the whores who do their bidding. I’d rather be a coyote.” ~Katie Lee

It’s a wonderful quote and so appropriate to the times–except that the pimps are *outside* of government (NRA, Safari Club, petroleum industry, Big Pharma, et al.) and the whores are *inside* doing their bidding.

Trump reverses Obama’s 2014 ban and plans to allow hunters to import trophies of elephants they killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the U.S. even though the African elephant is a protected species under the Endangered Species Act. Trump’s wealthy supporters in the Safari Club must be overjoyed.

a list of fish and wildlife contacts
I tried every number
I could not get anyone to answer
I was shunted by electronic answering service to an opinion line finally
no way to speak to a person
unbelievable

You forgot to say what was bad about the refuge story. Just cause SCI likes it is cause for concern but does not prove it is bad. Take Savannah NWR – the hunters there reduce deer and feral hog numbers. That helps rare shore birds. Locally I’ve been lobbying that we need deer hunting on our local “reserves” cause they are being destroyed. Look ma: no lupine, no trillium, no Michigan lily.
There are lots of good wildlife news stories:
For the first time, they let us shoot a few white-fronted and brant geese this year in MI – cause they are doing much better. We had 20 per day limits on snow, blue and Ross’s geese (combined) because there are lots more than there used to be. They let people shoot more green-winged teal too. We have tons of wood ducks compared to the old days, and that’s true for eagle, osprey, turkey, crane, trumpeters, and many other species. I shoot none of these (except the thunder-chickens), but like signs of progress.

Neat little story that also highlights caution in regard to the cause/correlation dilemma

It’s Official: Dog Owners Live Longer, Healthier Lives – TIME
It’s Official: Dog Owners Live Longer, Healthier Lives – TIME
The study—with a sample size hundreds of times larger than any other studies on this topic—was not designed to show a cause-and-effect relationship between dog ownership and reduced risk of death or cardiovascular disease, or to determine why these factors may be related. It’s possible that people who choose to own dogs may simply be more active and in better health to begin with, say the authors.

“It seemed to me, that returning wolves to even a slice of their historic range put something important back into an American West that had lost too much of what made it special. All of us owned the places where they were released, so why not?

To see the West reversing, going back the other way, was a privilege, and I’d loved my role in it. It had changed me in ways I never could of anticipated. In a way, the wolves changed me far more than I changed them.
It was a feeling that I hoped others would come to understand, in time, and maybe even share”

An excerpt fromCarter Neimeyer’s book Wolfer.

Always good to acknowledge the caring side of some of these professionals, that had years of “hands on” experience, restoring wolves to their historic range.

Henry Beston, “We need another and … [a wiser and perhaps]… a more mystical concept of animals.”

+

from Carter Niemeyer’s Wolfer, “In the end,… [people will determine which animals are allowed to persist.]… All we need are people who… [are brave enough to think for themselves and]… cherish those things that are still truly wild.”

+++
in simple English: in the long-term the sense of beauty / aesthetics is more relevant than ‘analysis’ ‘rationality’ ‘pragmatism’ etc because it will sooner propel the people to action than FAQ

American Wolf is really the first book of this type that actually unfolds sympathetically toward the locals in areas that have been affected by wolves.
+++

wolves have an alleged negative impact for a) ranchers b)hunters/outfiters.

A few dozen cattle taken by wolves in the NRM are is not driving local ranchers to bankruptcy. Ungulates consumed by wolves are compensated through the birth rate of elk / deer etc. Therefore an ‘impact’ or ‘affect’ is of imaginary nature – hunter success rate is not affected by wolves. Actually, it is the same as before wolves showed up.

Well, if it does reach the public about wolves and their plight, it will have done its job. But for those who follow these events more closely and have done for years, it won’t be telling us anything we don’t already sadly know.

And I certainly will *not* waste any of my ‘sympathy’ for those people who had deliberately set out to kill them and destroy the Yellowstone program, and who have to deign to live with and share the land with another one of nature’s inhabitants.

Another good thing is that it may bring up the buffer zone debate around National Parks again.

Besides 06, there were an estimated 10 other collared wolves deliberately destroyed by wolf haters during 2012. I hope the book doesn’t make it seem like it was just hunting. Unforgiveable and unforgettable.

I haven’t read this book, but the few excerpts I have read out of curiosity leave me appalled. There’s too much ‘morbid fascination’ with the pelt of this poor animal, I feel. The creep factor is definitely there. And the killer doesn’t want everyone to think of him as another [expletive]? Too late. Just not for me.

I have plenty of knowledge. This book has a few gaffes too. And the last thing I will say about this is that these people do not need our ‘sympathy’ because an animal is inconvenient for them and they resent having it restored to its rightful place. All the laws are in their favor and they have the so called-protection agencies in their back pockets. So no sympathy.

I haven’t yet read the book, but I live next to the eastern edge of the Park and near Crandall where that hunter killed 06. I am surprised the author was able to track down 06s killer since that’s such a guarded secret by WG&F. I don’t even know who it was, but I can tell you there are a lot of wolf haters in the Crandall area. This year hunters went over quota in our area. But at least the quota was more conservative than the year 06 was killed, which was 8 wolves. This year it was 4 (but 5 were killed). Our wolves travel back and forth into Yellowstone and exchange genetics.

Hmmm. I wonder if that part has beenfraud fictionalized; I suppose it isn’t that difficult to get one wolf hater to stand in for another. It does seem to be quite a little cabal out there between wolf haters and WG&F.

Also, in one bit I read, it said that Yellowstone is forbidden to even talk about the conflict issue in wolf presentations! I don’t know if the rumors about hunters being given or finding out the telemetry data was discussed in the book.

Seems a very draconian setup out there, and I resent that these people deprive others of having the opportunity to see wolves, even elsewhere in the country.

Then find out for your GD self. The book is about more than an anonymous wolf hater killing a wolf. The book is about life and death, with most of the Wolf death caused by other wolves. The book is about the passionate of those who observed the wolves, and the success or failure of the wolf packs followed.

You read a critique by someone who concentrates on three paragraphs at the book’s end, to which the other concludes as a profane experience. That’s not what the book is about.

Um no. We already know about life and death, especially for these poor animals, and about pack dynamics. The biggest threat to them is human, whether directly or indirectly.

And I don’t think ‘passion’ is a word I would use for loving an animal to death and habituating it to human presence if we care about wolves – I’d have been more interested if the Park personnel actually authored it.

I’ll get my information the way I always have, for years – scientific accounts and reports of those involved with trying to save them. And I feel rather vindicated that I don’t need an advanced degree to be taken seriously – but we all know that would be the first criticism if they didn’t have one.

1. suppose there’s no language problem and let’s try to imagine conversation in a pub between archetypical mainstream NRM hunter,rancher and a wolf.

As soon the wolf appears on the pub’s doorstep both hunter and rancher jump at his throat and start to scream about how he (the hunter) spends $4000 on ungulate hunting every year while you, poacher(the wolf), get a free lunch and consume 20 elk per year (20 x 4000 = $80 000-worth-free-lunch).

At the same time, the rancher is lamenting the narrow profit margin and says that the wolf is threatening the traditional way of life.

3. What concerns ‘traditional way of life’ – do you have a clue what was MY traditional way of life before you both showed up here? Hunting bisons who numbered in millions.

Fast forward to recent times – I’ve heard on the grapevine that National Agricultural Statistics Service shows Oregon cattle ranchers (NAICS 112111) having cattle-death losses of more than 70,000 cows & calves annually in the decade of the ’90s. For most of this decade, the death losses have been in the low 60,000s. Surely, wolves weren’t responsible for the 1990s’ losses? Today, with each of 155 wolves eating a head per week, that still leaves more than 50,000 carcasses annually due to other causes.

However, the Capital Press (11/16/15) stated “From 2009 through June 2015, Oregon’s confirmed losses to wolves stood at 79 sheep, 37 cattle, two goats and two herd protection dogs.” Somehow, there’s a problem in the wolf-loss calculus. Perhaps the industry avoids preventative husbandry to better shout “Wolf!” to draw attention from the environmental toll of their industry.

4. Then let’s not forget instructive case of Gordon Haber. To quote from “Among Wolves”: In 1997 he freed a snared wolf, for which the trapper sued him. The wolf was wearing a radio collar from the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve and was snared just outside the park boundary. The snare holding the wolf was surrounded by caribou carcasses; such baiting is illegal. … Haber offered to pay the trapper a thousand dollars for the wolf, more than twice what the trapper would have made from the pelt, but instead the trapper sued and won a total of $190 000. … Friends of Animals paid the fine. … The trial was held in the trapper’s hometown of Tok, where sentiments against Haber had been running high for a long time.During the trial, a man stood up and yelled that they should take Haber outside and tar and feather him.

Dr.Haber was so openly reviled that when his death was reported, some hunting and trapping blogs lit up in celebration.

+++

So much for ‘narrow profit margins’ and ‘respect for rugged individualism’. Hatred will beat both profit motive and proclaimed respect for freedom of speech at any time.

This was really heartbreaking about Gordon Haber. I think the man you speak of killed a horse to bait wolves out of Denali. And we know Denali’s wolf population is dwindling. I hope Yellowstone doesn’t end up the same way by placating these people.

It is delusions of grandeur to think that anyone can know (and even know better than) what some have dedicated their entire lives to study.

As far as “22” and the poison rhetoric this person and a handful of others spew, I agree with Dr. David Mech – who said something to the effect that in order to save wolves, you’ve got to “out yell, out vote, out think, outdo and basically out everything the opposition does. I don’t have the exact quote but it was words to that effect.

This was very concerning, and I’m glad it is being examined. That photo of Donald Jr. with the severed elephant’s tail is very unfortunate, and I hope he has matured in his views.

And killing a wolf because you ‘resent’ it being on ‘your’ landscape, and having the gall to take ‘your’ elk is offensively childish and ill-informed (lack of) reasoning and the more base emotions. The same cold be said of them on the landscape. Other people may feel the need to defend this behavior, but I don’t.

It should be against personal ethics to kill young, because then we are killing off the future elk that we prize so much? But then, I suppose we wouldn’t be able to blame killing fawns on wolves and coyotes, would we. Hypocritical.

As I said, I’m not against hunting for food – but I am against no personal restraints simply because we are human. Thank goodness for things like the concept of chance, else we’d never have a unanticipated military coup in developing nations to crimp our style.

Sometimes I am happy when we are left with our arrogant jaws agape by the unforeseen.

Killing the young deer is recommended by biologists in places like northern MI precisely because it does NOT impact future deer densities much. Perhaps I will need to explain it but I shouldn’t have to. In any harsh winter they will mostly die, so killing them early means more food for the others who have a chance at surviving, and you will not have reduced spring densities one jot. Even if they survive winter and cars and diseases it is 1.5 years before the females will have their first fawn, if they live that long, and they are not very good mothers to start with. Trophy hunters don’t want you to shoot the young males – that’s true, but it’s not cause they are valuable to the population, and it’s not about ethics. It’s not even about cuteness, which is the only place I can figure your ethics in this case come from.

Just because the importation of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe were halted does not mean that elephant hunting has stopped. It is currently sold as a non trophy animal and the tusks can not be imported. The cost of these hunts are a faction of a hunt that allows the tusk to be imported.

Namibia allows elephant hunting and the tusks are importable to the US. The inclusive cost of a Namibia elephant hunt is approximately $85,000. Currently Zimbabwe non importable elephant hunts are around $25,000. If one is hunting plains game and cape buffalo a tuskless cow trophy fee is approximately $3000 and can be added on to the safari bill. The availability of tuskless cow permits depends upon whether quota for that concession.

Maybe it is better to allow elephant hunting and get the full value of the elephant instead of only getting a faction the cost.

maybe it’s better to refine trophy hunting as the dangerous, immoral, unacceptable, vile practice that it is. Trophy hunting is a vile practice that is used as false equivalency to conservation. We can demand better when two thirds of a population is decimated in a decade and when 50 percent of species have declined in the last fifty years.

The hunting clubs need to get a grip on their desire to kill and regulators need to force a switch to hobbies.

These people seem willing to pay huge money to kill
How about charging that same money to view the biggest and best for photography only?
They still get their elitist thrill but can’t kill

I am happy that there are employees of the Park and aficionados so devoted to their wildlife, but I criticize them for not being more courageous and standing up more to the opposition. There really should be a buffer zone around the Park. We’ll see what happens with the grizzlies coming up – but I really and teetering on the edge of not visiting anymore. They really have become overcrowded, and it takes the joy out of the entire experience.

I’m sure this book would have value for those who are unfamiliar with wolves and wildlife, but criticisms I have read is that it seems to be a little too ‘understanding’ of the point of view of the wolf opposition, and then trying to tie in with Game of Thrones success is just a little over the top.

I should add that I tend to be very critical of wildlife stories, especially wolf stories, unless the author has a lot of established cred.

They tend to have misinformation that can harm IMO, especially when authors and editors really don’t have the knowledge, and whose main goal is to sell. There’s one novel I know of that is still continuing the ‘wolf stealing babies’ meme, whether intentionally or by ignorance, I don’t know.

Perhaps if we were not so stingy with the amount of range we ‘grant’ wolves and other wildlife, there would be less territorial ‘life and death’ pack battles and conflicts with other wildlife (biggest of all, human)? And I think at the very least, there ought to be a buffer zone at the North Entrance to Yellowstone.

“I’m sure this book would have value for those who are unfamiliar with wolves and wildlife, but criticisms I have read is that it seems to be a little too ‘understanding’ of the point of view of the wolf opposition, and then trying to tie in with Game of Thrones success is just a little over the top.”

You’re off your flipping rocker.

“Criticisms you have read”… read the darn book and form your own “criticisms”.
“

A profane experience? How could anyone have thought it would not be? That to me might be the most offensive part of all – it shows that he had no prior experience, knowledge, or interest in this issue before. What was the purpose? Aldo Leopold, Thompson Seton, and Carter Niemeyer at least had a profoundly changed; 06’s killer had no such change. You can just hear an editor saying – ‘put that in, it’s edgy!’

And as far as being as bad as ’22’, you kind of have to be, I feel (and worse!). Otherwise, you are only assisting them in killing wolves and other wildlife, with their poison rhetoric and killing. Aiding and abetting, I think it used to be called. This willfully ignorant, destructive and dangerous mindset hasn’t changed much since setters first set foot here. When the decks are already stacked well in their favor, there is no more understanding needed. Before ‘men rule the world’. If they do rul it, it’s very poorly.

1. Talking about exclusion zones – when the Soviet military disappeared from Estonia local biologists soon went ballistic from joy. As civilians were denied access to military zones then thanks to minimal human impact for 40 years there was found an abundance of biodiversity.

Dawn Primarolo, minister for health, revealed 369 farms and 190 000 sheep were affected, but pointed out this was a tiny number compared with the immediate impact of radioactive fallout from Ukraine.

“This represents a reduction of over 95% since 1986, when approximately 9 700 farms and 4,225,000 sheep were under restriction across the United Kingdom. All restrictions in Northern Ireland were lifted in 2000,” she added.

Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich was one of the most sobering, horrifying, and tragic books I’ve ever read. It looks like it’s being turned into a film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9RVnTeApSI

“With the help of lynx we want to grab your attention to another carnivore – pine marten. Lynxes differ greatly from pine martens, but at the same time they have a lot in common. For instance, they both love big fallen trees and tetraonid birds. Besides, pine marten will never miss an opportunity to steal some food cashed by lynx. Pine marten is like a natural lynx’s satellite: wherever you put your camera trap for a lynx, you will catch a pine marten!

During vast amounts of time in the wild and a lot of field studies on wolves and lynxes in Belarus only lynxes killed by lynxes (males killed by other males and kits killed by males) were found. We never found any lynx (kits or adult) killed by wolves.

In contrast, we found several wolf pups of various age and pregnant wolves killed by lynx:

statistics

My point of view is clear: at least, in Belarus, lynxes, first of all, adult males suppress wolf reproduction, by frequently killing of pups and pregnant females. This, in turn, affects the wolf population dynamic, sometimes, quite heavily.

Below you will find some photo-material on the interference between wolves and lynxes in Nalibiki Forest in Belarus suggesting the leading role of lynxes in the interspecific interference.

It’s hunting season here
Even in no hunting areas I am afraid to walk my dog even when he wears orange
So much entitlement and gross negligence
Hunting accidents are not isolated incidents
They are commonplace

Hunting homicides have decreased over the decades.
It takes a idiot. Millions of people are hunting deer and some are idiots. One complaint I have is that the punishments are almost never sufficient, and I worry the deterrent is not enough. It should be made clear that we do not consider these happenings to be “accidents”.

I see at least 3 stories in the last week for “hunter shoots leg”, one a MI genius with handgun who fell asleep and was startled when his cell phone rang. This likely requires having safety off and finger on the trigger. Another shoots his son while crossing a creek when perhaps I would have not even had a bullet in the gun – details lacking. If I jump out of a plane without a parachute, is my injury when reaching the ground an accident? I’ve noticed most news sources call them car crashes instead of accidents now.

I don’t know the the statistical probability of being shot by a hunter while in the woods
But I can speak to the fear and panic I experience when I hear gunshots
For myself
My dog and mostly for the wild animals who have no other place to hide or hope of removing themselves from
Harm
In the past two months I’ve been stuck in areas where gun shots have paralyzed me and my friends while hiking as we called out ” hey we are here with our dogs ” no response to let us know they heard but continued gun shots close to us
I don’t let me dog leave me side for fear some idiot will shoot him
I don’t care whether I would have recourse I don’t want him shot
And then I can’t help being immobilized thinking of the fear an animal must feel being pursued by men and hounds
Gun shots and baying in the woods feels like assault of innocents
What are the chances of being shot
Ask my friend Jon Way

My most terrifying experience in MT: my dog and I were walking on a gated two-track on the side of a small mountain–approaching the Lolo Nat’l Forest boundary– when someone from a road down below shot upward. I literally heard the bullet cutting through the air between me and my pup. My legs just buckled. It wasn’t yet hunting season–she didn’t have on her ridiculous jester outfit–but getting close to it.

What never seems to get much exposure is how many more people actually interact with those 700 bears (spread out over 3 states – hikers, hunters, etc.) and never feel threatened and how many more? are probably not even aware those “bruins” are around.

Did she experience the freedom to wander and was just incredibly fortunate, during that time, to never encounter that tiny majority of “public safety” human beings, who also chose to live in wildlife habitat, but failed,when it comes to actually having to interface with the wildlife?

I never did understand how killing a animal would cause all the rest of them to learn to fear humans. Herd or pack animals maybe, IF all the other members saw a human at the same time that one was killed AND all the other members were able to connect the dots. Unlikely and probably not at all with solitary leaning animals like bears.

Agree with you completely, you can’t learn from anything that makes you dead, and hits you prior to the sound reaching you…

There exists anecdotal evidence that the sound of gun shot will actually draw in bears, coyotes, and wolves in a Pavlovian response to food as the association is made between the sound of gunfire and gut piles.
Ergo, the dinner bell rings.

Ugh. People have to take responsibility for our own safety. The Parks need to be more strong about what is expected of visitors. So I would say no, that only under the most extreme of circumstances should a wild animal be killed for encountering a human in its own home. The more we encourage people to go into areas that were once protected, the more conflict there will be – like jogging alone, not carrying bear spray, and mountain biking in these remote areas. I refuse to call these bad encounters ‘attacks’ because most time they are just an animal who is frightened/threatened and is defending itself and/or young.

The poor animals need to have some habitat left without being constantly disturbed by us!

I hadn’t read about any stupid selfie tricks this year by Park visitors?

1. not all shots are ‘clean ones’
2. in Europe there’s a lot of countries where the hunting is organized by hunter clubs. Consider the hunting operation when beaters make noise and drive ungulates or wolves etc towards the shooter line. Witnesses who survive, notice that it is better to avoid those madmen.

3. most of killed wolves are pups /youngsters and it is possible that others of the pack who witness the loss of their pack mate, connect the dots

Time, tide and freight wait for no reindeer, I guess. Tragic. You’d think something would be done to disperse them, especially as it continued over a 3-day span? Hopefully, they won’t turn around and blame reindeer deaths on wolves.

“Tucked away in the Senate report accompanying Monday’s funding bill for the Department of the Interior is a directive to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to “end the Red Wolf recovery program and declare the Red Wolf extinct.””

Excerpt: ““Rep. Cheney is giving oil and gas companies and other industries a free pass to kill birds with impunity. This amendment guts the most effective bird conservation law that has been on the books for a century, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Under Cheney’s amendment, companies would have no responsibility for bird deaths.”

Excerpts (it’s a long article): “It is not clear on what basis the USFWS has decided that hunting of lions in these countries is beneficial to their conservation,” said Luke Hunter, a lion expert with Panthera. “I think that’s very difficult to demonstrate, and I would like to see the scientific data that shows it to be the case.”

“Trump’s abrupt backpedaling after public outcry, while appreciated, shows how arbitrary this deplorable decision was,” …an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

“The confidential source added that the current annual trophy hunting quota for wild elephants, set at 500 animals, is based on “wildly exaggerated and migratory census data” – meaning that Zimbabwe is counting elephants that are only passing through portions of the country for short periods.”

“In the face of escalating public attacks over recent decades, trophy hunters have become increasingly denigrating in their own self-defense. Safari Club International, for example, blamed Trump’s turnaround not on the president himself, but on “hysterical” and “shrill” anti-hunters.”

Excerpt: “There has been considerable discussion about the kinds of people President Trump wants to see on the federal courts, and how they might perform. Recently there was a disturbing indication of what may be in store. On Nov. 3, Chief Judge Susan Braden of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, appointed to this post by Trump in March, handed down a remarkable and troubling decision involving the nation’s public lands.

“This relatively low-profile court hears money claims against the United States. Braden ruled that cattle ranchers using public lands with the permission of the U.S. Forest Service are entitled to financial compensation from U.S. taxpayers because the government’s efforts to protect endangered species on those lands allegedly took their water rights in violation of the U.S. Constitution.”

You’ll have to read it for yourself to see how the Malheur occupation figures into this judge’s thinking.

Thanks for that.
“assuming the Department of Justice files an appeal” worried me a bit. Also that the authors found the judge’s ruling so ridiculous that impeachment sounds in order, not that I’m holding my breath.

Excerpt: “The new proclamations, which also will split up both monuments into several smaller ones, would cut the overall size of Bears Ears from 1.35 million acres to 201,397 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante from nearly 1.9 million acres to 997,490 acres.”

This might be sacrilege, but if we could trade small areas with lots of oil for bigger (and important) areas with less, it could be a win. Oil companies have leases on not-very-promising land that aren’t really worth developing. I’m not pro-oil-drilling, just want to trade up to protect more and better land where we can. I’ve seen proposals like that before, but it’s been awhile.
Generally I favor delay – the oil is not going anywhere, so unless you worry that it will be worthless in the future, which I doubt, you can treat it like a bank account. That doesn’t make oil company money support your campaign now though.

And it isn’t our to ‘trade’ with either. What could possibly be better than this area, I wonder?

You remind me of the Time magazine article from 2001 I read the other night, where Frank Murkowski holds up a blank sheet of white paper, saying that there’s ‘nothing there’ in this area. In contrast, the indigenous person saw everything:

Time and time again, once there’s a compromise, we’ve seen that those compromising on the environment get nothing back in return. You’ll never get any ‘better’ area back in return, as we can see with what’s happening with the scrutiny on the National monuments, and with the sage grouse habitat promises that turned out to be a big nothing.

We’ve seen it with wolves, and I don’t want to see it with grizzly hunting.

If we can protect 7 million new acres at the cost of (carefully) developing 2000 currently protected ones that might be an improvement.
You seem to be trying to say improving our stewardship is impossible, but we leased allot of defacto wilderness up there, and it is not worthless land. I am not saying currently protected ones are worthless.

I didn’t mean you specifically when I wrote about the gall of politicians gambling with our lands. Our track record isn’t very good here. I kinda do think good stewardship is impossible. But I hope to be proven wrong someday.

Well, there have been decades to protect this place permanently by making it a national monument, and it was never done. I blame all of the politicians, on both sides. Too busy groping, it would appear. A total embarrassment.

I think hunters ought to be penalized if they are not carrying bear spray, with a fine. Visitors too. None of this optional stuff. It could even leave the Park open to liability in our modern litigious culture.

It’s too out of control – and a lot of ‘mischief’ seems to happen around the North entrance to Yellowstone. Why, I wonder. At least one other bear, Scarface, was killed there. And of course wolves.

A buffer zone, or a no hunting zone at the North entrance, would seem to be the answer. Grow a spine, official, and just do it.

Excerpt: “If only the sandstones could sing, imagine the stories they’d tell, of dinosaurs, mammoth hunters and the “ancient ones” known as the Anasazi.
All roamed southern Utah over the eons, long before Native Americans struggled to hold their land against Mormon settlers, modern life and now, Donald Trump.”
…
“I’m going to sue him,” says Yvon Chouinard, founder and CEO of outdoor gear maker Patagonia. “It seems the only thing this administration understands is lawsuits. I think it’s a shame that only 4% of American lands are national parks. Costa Rica’s got 10%. Chile will now have way more parks than we have. We need more, not less. This government is evil and I’m not going to sit back and let evil win.”

“While former presidents have trimmed or altered monument boundary lines 18 times in the past, none have done so since the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act was enacted and none have been challenged in court”

Calendar

Quote

‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."